


Masterpiece Boy

by fujoshism (fancypineapple)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Death (Reversible), M/M, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-27
Updated: 2017-07-27
Packaged: 2018-12-07 15:18:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11626287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancypineapple/pseuds/fujoshism
Summary: [Originally posted on August 5, 2013]In which Kim Jongin drives himself into an arson, befriends a trio of mythic creatures, and becomes involved in one of the biggest karmic scandals of all times.





	1. baekhyun.

**Author's Note:**

> one of my first exo fics, was intended to be a series but i never rly finished the following installments (as per usual). it's been a while since i've looked back to it. btw, recently i got myself a [writing twitter](http://twitter.com/baconiettuce). follow me there if you wanna!

It happened on the first week after Jongin got his driving license. He was still unfamiliarized with the city’s navigation from a driver’s point of view, and more often than not attempted at a route that would have worked fine if he had been on foot, but only led him to waste time making huge roundabouts when taking it by car. However, his lack of Driver’s Sense surprisingly failed to get him into trouble until that rainy Thursday afternoon, when he drove himself right into the lion’s mouth.

Cutting the back story short, Jongin had decided to take a risk, again, and had failed, again, at following his planned route. This time, however, he was driving around an area he didn’t know very well, and, when his first roundabout didn’t work, he became effectively lost by going two streets more south than he was supposed to. It was a very grey part of the city, made greyer and melancholic by the cold rain, and Jongin was not very happy about having to drive around there, clueless to where he was. If only to dampen his mood a bit more, the rain grew heavier the more lost he got, as if to warn him he had made a mistake. Jongin huffed, annoyed at his own thoughts. _I know that already_ , he mentally shouted at the weather, glaring at the dense clouds.

Then, it started getting foggy. Jongin was partially sure that he had accidentally entered some real life Silent Hill situation, because the fog was impossibly thick and heavy and it came from nowhere, as if the rainclouds had rolled onto Earth. It took him a while to notice, and he did so thanks to the sudden heat and the dark gray particles gathering on the windshield, that (fortunately) what he entered was not Silent Hill, because what had been tampering his vision was not fog, but smoke.

Jongin had somehow driven himself right into a fire. A huge one.

Jongin hated fire. Well, he didn’t know a single person who particularly liked fire, but he hated it to previously unseen extents. He was terrified of it. As a child, Jongin constantly saw nightmares of fire: his house burning to the ground with him inside, the flames swallowing his family. Growing up only gave him more variations of the dream. Sometimes, it was the school burning down. The bus. The university. Recently, his car. He truly, truly hated fire.

In all honesty, he had the right to panic, but he wished he wouldn’t. Panicking didn’t help, not any more than shrieking like an eight-year-old at the flickering sight of flames, and right now he needed all the help he could use, because it was so hot that he could feel the fire lick his skin, and the smell was getting too intense. He did his best to engage his tiny cheap car in a quick U-turn, but it was harder than he’d have wished for. Then, right when the last of his nerves were waning as he prepared to speed the hell away from there, both doors on the left side of his car winded open and a bunch of unknown people barged in.

“Get us out of here! Quick!!” shouted whoever had the nerve to take the passenger’s seat, and Jongin tried to say something, but opening his mouth resulted in a lot of smoke invading his lungs and he could only cough. “Come on!! You don’t want to die here, do you?”

The stranger had a point, and Jongin decided to do as told, eyes tearful from the smoke as he finished the U-turn and drove away in a truly absurd speed. Luckily, the fog seemed to open up to him as he drove by, and he felt a bit safer, albeit not safe enough to take it easy on the gas pedal. Only when they could no longer see, feel or smell any signs of the fire, was that Jongin slowed down, his heart thumping loudly from the adrenaline. He then decided to take a discreet look at the strangers we was giving a ride to.

They were three, and they looked like an ash-stained sweating mess, but well, they _had_ just escaped from a fire. The one behind the passenger’s seat was pale, all long limbs and huge eyes; he reminded Jongin of a Tim Burton character. His hair had been clearly damaged by the heat, and his nose was bright red. Jongin couldn’t see the one seating behind his own seat very well but, from what he could see, that one also had big eyes, but his eyes were downcast and gloomy. Overall, he looked rather sad and withered, as if all of his energy had been drained from his body.

The one sitting beside Jongin, who had screamed at him earlier, had the best appearance. He looked unaffected to the point that anyone could’ve thought he’d just walked out the mall if it weren’t for the amount of ash covering his jacket, his cheeks, his entire being, tinting his eyelashes and hair with a light, unnatural color. Also – and that Jongin noticed after the stranger turned to face him – his eyes had a strange, menacing gleam.

Despite that, he smiled. “Thanks for saving us, mate.”

“We’re not safe yet,” the gloomy man said, voice soft and as miserable as his features. “He’s on our tail. Let’s climb off and run.”

The man with long limbs looked horrified. “ _Run_? He’s gonna find us in seconds!”

“For starters, let’s get somewhere safe,” the ash-covered man said in a firm voice, then turning to Jongin with another smile. Jongin wondered if he was dealing with someone famous. “Would you mind…? Turn left here.”

It’s not like Jongin had the backbone to throw them out, so he sharply turned left as told, making his car jiggle dangerously on its wheels. He silently apologized, but the man with long limbs laughed and the ash-covered man chuckled quietly, so Jongin considered himself forgiven. The gloomy man did not make a sound.

“Straight here,” the ash-covered man continued to give him directions. “Then turn right there – not here, there, yes. Follow this street… I think it’s the next one. Left. Left again.”

Jongin just silently followed the orders, hopes of getting to his job interview in time long lost.

Eventually, they reached a place the ash-covered man deemed suitable; a small, tall, decrepit hotel. In all honesty, it looked like it was haunted; Jongin had no idea buildings this crooked and washed-out actually existed outside of amusement parks. As they parked the car in a nearby alley and went into the hotel, they found the moldy entrance hall to be empty, completely empty, and dead silent.

Somehow, the gloomy man managed to fish a room key without even leaning over the counter, and none of them hesitated to simply go find their room. Only Jongin did hesitate, not used to hotels, specially not ones in which you just barge in without talking to anyone.

Later, after climbing several exhaustively long sets of stairs, when wondering if it was okay for him to sit on the bed as the strangers entered the room, Jongin would realize that he could have left instead of following them. Flustered by his own silliness, Jongin decided to remain standing and demand an explanation.

“Um,” the sound that came out of his mouth was a little pathetic, but it immediately attracted the attention of the three men. It almost made him step back instinctively. He scratched his nape in a nervous gesture, suddenly self-aware. “Um, so. So… should I ask what’s going on?”

The three strangers diverted their eyes from him, choosing to glance at each other as if communicating via telepathy. Jongin regretted his words a little. He should just have left. He didn’t want to be let into something he couldn’t get out from later, like the Mafia or something.

“I’m sorry. We ended up leaving you in the dark, didn’t we?” the ash-covered man stood up to shake hands with him, and Jongin found himself unable to take that hand, because _Christ_ , the palms were actually pitch black. The stranger seemed to take notice of that, and gave up on the handshake with an apologetic smile. “My name is Baekhyun. Don’t worry, we’re not dangerous people—”

The gloomy man snorted.

“… not the kind you might think we are, anyway.” That was the least reassuring thing Jongin had heard in a long time. “If you want to, you can stay for a while and I’ll explain what happened. Then, you can just go home.”

It sounded tempting. Baekhyun seemed to be willingly transparent, and Jongin sure would love to know why the hell what were they doing in that fire and why were they in such a hurry if they weren’t criminals. And then, afterwards, he could just go home. So Jongin nodded in agreement.

“Great,” Baekhyun seemed glad. The strange gleam from before returned to his eyes. “So, sit here, the story is long. First—”

“Baekhyun,” the gloomy man spoke up. “Perhaps you should go take a shower? I can explain everything to him.”

Baekhyun blinked questioningly at him, frowning a bit. Then, he seemed to acknowledge the state of his clothes and hair, reckoning that he was much dirtier than what he might have thought, and complied.

“Tell him everything!” he said while heading to the bathroom. Thus, Jongin was left in the presence of the two yet unnamed strangers; Long Limbs, who had been walking around the room in a restless manner since they had gone in, hurriedly sat beside Gloomy on the threadbare couch, his smile slightly manic. Jongin took a seat on the wooden chair placed beside the bed.

“May I ask your name?” Gloomy looked much less gloomy than before, suddenly irradiating an oddly comforting aura.

“Jongin,” no last names.

“Jongin,” he repeated it carefully, as if it were a word in a foreign language that he longed to understand. “My name is Kyungsoo. I don’t really know where to begin, but… well, I’ll try.”

“Basically it all started because I’m dead,” Long Limbs suddenly said, voice deep, startling Jongin greatly.

“You’re not _dead_ , Chanyeol!” Kyungsoo objected, seeming personally offended at the remark. Jongin blinked at the exchange, then frowned. Wait, what? What?

What…?

“I’m almost dead. I’m just a spirit without a body,” Chanyeol carried on, unaffected. “Like a reverse zombie, you know?”

Jongin’s frown deepend. “ _What_?”

“He’s not dead, nor is he almost dead. He’s wandering,” Kyungsoo tried to fix it. “The bit about him being a spirit is true, though. At least right now. But I don’t think it’d be correct to call him a reverse zombie, because he’s _not_ dead.”

Ignoring the bit about zombies, Jongin gaped. “So… you… you’re a ghost?!”

Chanyeol suddenly jumped on his feet in a burst of energy. “Ah! _Ah_!! That’s the word I was looking for!! I’m a ghost!” he fell back onto the couch with a satisfied grin. “See, Kyungsoo! That’s what I wanted to tell you before! I can haunt people! How cool is that?”

“Not cool at all,” Kyungsoo muttered, back to being gloomy. “The only one you’ve been haunting for the past days is me. Anyway, I should go back to the explanation. Yes, it all happened a week ago, because Chanyeol’s soul escaped from his body. We were trying to fix this when—”

“Wait, wait,” Jongin interrupted. “I want to ask you something. If… Chanyeol sshi… is a ghost,” he hesitantly phrased his question. “And you’re trying to, um, fix his situation?, or something… are you a medium?”

Kyungsoo’s expression was blank. “Oh,” he muttered, hit by enlightenment. “No, I’m not. Um, I’m an entity. I don’t know how to say this without making it sound drastic, but I’m what humans know as an angel.”

Jongin just gaped again, looking severely dumb.

“I think you just made it all even more drastic,” Chanyeol chuckled, and Kyungsoo blushed slightly.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and Jongin shook his head to dismiss it. “So, anyway. Where was I? Ah, yes, we were trying to fix Chanyeol’s situation when we met Baekhyun. Baekhyun had some problems of his own, and we got caught up in them somehow. Also, upon meeting Baekhyun, Chanyeol’s soul became even more detached from his body, to the point that he might actually die if he remembers anything else.”

“So I _am_ almost dead,” Chanyeol cheekily pointed out. Kyungsoo looked like he was aching to hit Chanyeol on the head.

“Ah, wait,” Jongin interjected once again, pointing at Chanyeol in sudden agitation. “If you’re a ghost,” he then pointed at Kyungsoo. “And you’re an angel… Baekhyun sshi is…?”

“A demon,” they answered in unison.

Jongin nodded, dumbfounded, the human embodiment of white noise. He wasn’t sure of what he had been expecting for an answer.

“And, and,” he rushed to ask as remembered his other question. “You said that when you met Baekhyun sshi, Chanyeol sshi’s soul became more detached…”

“Yes. The more Chanyeol remembers about his life, the more detached his soul becomes. Usually, wandering souls are wandering because they don’t know who they are and whether they are dead or alive. The nature of Baekhyun’s… um, job, as we might say, ended up reminding Chanyeol of his own… occupation as a living being.”

Jongin nodded again, increasingly shocked at how absurd it all was, the story, the whole situation. He, Kim Jongin, normal twenty-something South Korean college graduate, had left home early for a job interview. Then, he got lost on his way. Now, it was high morning and he was sitting in a stingy hotel room with a ghost, an angel and a demon who was taking a shower.

Baekhyun chose that moment to come out from the bathroom, hair dripping, clad in a quite grimy bathrobe. “What did I miss?” he asked with a saucy grin.

“Everything. I just finished the story,” Kyungsoo smiled for the first time since Jongin first saw him. “I’m heading to the shower too now. Please try not to destroy anything,” he glanced at Chanyeol, implying that the plead was directed to him as well.

“Can I go with you?” Chanyeol was the portrait of childish innocence.

“No!” Kyungsoo shouted, shutting the door closed before Jongin could tell whether he had blushed or not.

Chanyeol waited until he could hear the shower running. When he did, he put a finger on his lips, asking Jongin and Baekhyun to keep quiet, and slipped into the bathroom wall, away from their sight. Jongin watched the scene in stunned silent. When he turned around, he found out that Baekhyun had been watching his stunned silence with an amused grin on his lips.

Free from the ashes, Baekhyun looked much more human than before. The natural color of his hair and eyelashes, previously covered in grey, was now revealed to be dark sienna, warm and soft. Jongin didn’t know what led him to associate warmth to a hair color, but it was automatic. Everything about Baekhyun seemed to be warm; his flushed skin, his mischievous grin, his gleaming, menacing eyes.

“So!” he spoke up suddenly, startling Jongin. “I hope Kyungsoo wasn’t too dramatic about the whole deal. Did he tell you about me?”

Slowly, Jongin nodded. “He told me you’re a demon…” he trailed off, realizing that such a sentence would have had multiple connotations if the context had been different. Baekhyun crossed his arms, leading the bathrobe to slide imperceptibly from his shoulders, and nodded.

“That’s right. I don’t think he told you what I do, considering that Chanyeol was listening,” he waited for Jongin’s confirmation. Jongin shook his head. “He’s afraid talking about it will kill Chanyeol. Anyway, it’s not really a relevant detail,” Baekhyun shrugged, tearing a stripe off the bathrobe with practiced ease, as if it were paper and not rough fabric. “I just need an excuse to show off.”

He threw the strip of fabric in the air, way above their heads, and stared at it intently. So did Jongin, almost unconsciously, wondering what that could be about – and then he saw the smoke. Black smoke, rising slowly from the fabric, a thin, almost invisible thread of it.

When the fabric reached Jongin’s eye level, it burst into flames.

Jongin jumped back, falling from the chair and almost hitting his head pretty hard on the bedside table. Hot blush crept up his neck when he heard Baekhyun laugh, but he couldn’t blame him; that had been a pretty pathetic fall.

“Chill! I’m not gonna set you on fire or anything,” the demon reached his hand out for Jongin to hold, chest now completely exposed. On his way up, Jongin hit the chair with his own knee, hard, and had to bite his lip so not to whimper in pain. “That was just one of my tricks. How did you like it?”

Jongin stared at him in disbelief, but Baekhyun seemed to be serious. “Cool,” he said simply, and it seemed to make Baekhyun slightly frustrated. “What do you use it for?”

“Cause mayhem,” the demon said simply, browsing the bedroom for something. Presumably, something else to set fire to. “Wreck havoc. Nothing too big, just small freak accidents here and there. Domestic fires, short-circuits, exploding lamps. Ah,” he looked up with a sly smile. In a second, the lamp was going on and off in a quick rhythm, and Baekhyun was clumsily beatboxing a dance club beat. “Strobe. How’s that? Never a dull moment with me around.”

Jongin didn’t know what to say. The laughter that suddenly escaped from his lips was involuntary, surprising himself. It seemed to please Baekhyun, though. “Really cool, right?”

“Yeah,” Jongin nodded, smiling when Baekhyun started to disco-dance to his own beatboxing. Eventually, the unavoidable happened: the lamp burned out with a soft ‘poof’. “Oops,” Baekhyun made a face before, somehow, forcing the lamp to go on again. “Don’t mention that to Kyungsoo, okay? He hates when it happens.”

“Okay,” and the next sentence slipped before Jongin could think twice. “I should probably go.”

It fell a bit heavily in the room. Much heavier than Jongin would have liked, at least; he wasn’t in a rush to leave. Even though he should. Probably. Considering the circumstances.

Baekhyun looked disappointed, and that shrunk Jongin’s will to leave to almost zero. “You’re right,” the demon gave in, shrugging, and Jongin tried not to pay attention to how the bathrobe was going to be fully open in a matter of seconds. He could already see Baekhyun’s belly button. Maybe it was a good time to leave. “Thank you for helping us out today. We’d be deep-fried by now if you hadn’t.”

“You’re welcome,” Jongin said politely, bowing, as Baekhyun guided him to the door.

“No we’re not,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “I’d say ‘see you around’, but you should hope I don’t. So, goodbye, Kim Jongin.”

Jongin was outside already. From where he was standing, he heard a loud noise coming from the bathroom, followed by several thumps on the door. Kyungsoo had probably found Chanyeol peeking on him. “Goodbye. Stay safe.”

With a bright chuckle, Baekhyun unceremoniously shut the door right on his face.

And that was the end of Jongin’s supernatural adventures.

Or so he thought, at least.


	2. escape.

The hotel seemed even more like a haunted building now that Jongin climbed down the stairs alone. The wallpaper was purplish, stained in several shades of brown, peeling off in certain points to reveal moldy plaster; the stairs creaked and whined under his feet at the slightest pressure, like nightingale floor; and the lamps did a poor job at illuminating the place, only succeeding in creating distorted shadows at the edges of the countless photographs hanging on the walls. Jongin was hurrying his pace to get out of there.

But it felt like a century before he finished climbing down the stairs, and the hall now seemed thrice as wide as it had been when he came in. A feverish sense of danger invaded Jongin’s mind. He really wanted to run across the hall as fast as he could, but decided to control himself and walk deliberately slow.

 _Well, well, well_. Jongin jumped when he heard a chorus of whispers rumble through the wall, going up. As he paid attention to the echo, he almost laughed in relief. What the hell, it had only been the water pipes! They were probably terribly rusty – hence the weird, voice-like noises. He resumed his walk.

Here, too, the walls were covered in framed photographs – no, they weren’t photographs. When studying them better, Jongin saw that every single one of those frames held newspaper pieces, headlines, columns, random pictures. One of the headlines said: **FOUND: THE MASTERPIECE BOY!** , which Jongin found equal parts ridiculous and interesting. He couldn’t read much past the subtitle – **We are all very pleased to know a living stance of art** – because the letters were small and smudged together, so he was left wondering what the article could be about.

 **DISOBEDIENCE IS NOT TOLERATED** , read another one, and the pipes rumbled once again, _well, well, well_. Some of those headlines honestly freaked Jongin out. One of them was nothing but the bold text over a black-and-white picture of a huge fire; **IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANY OF US**. His flesh crept at the sight of fire, the outlines of it reminding him of a grotesque smiling face, and, suddenly, the sense of danger from before was ringing in his ears. He really wanted to get out of there.

He walked, walked, strode across the hall in great hurry. As he reached forward to open the door, he realized he was facing nothing but a tall, empty wall. His urgency turned into frustration and embarrassment; he had been walking in the wrong direction! Jongin could see the door from the corner of his right eye, static, silently mocking him.

“I’m an idiot,” he mumbled to himself before turning around and walking towards the door. He refused to look up, tired of looking at the gloomy headlines and blurred pictures, deciding to focus his glance on the floor.

It proved to be a mistake. After a good minute of walking, Jongin found himself facing the stairs he had come down from, the front door now more distant than ever. Jongin grew increasingly frustrated at his own inability to walk in the right direction, and was about to restart the quest when a hand held his shoulder and he jumped in great startle.

“It’s me,” Jongin’s heartbeat was drumming in the back of his throat when he realized the hand belonged to Baekhyun. He was no longer dressed in a bathrobe, but wasn’t exactly dressed for a party either: all he had on were a pair of pajama pants. His expression was calm and somehow reassuring. “I thought you had left already.”

Jongin blushed. “I know this is going to sound stupid,” he avoided eye contact, choosing to look at the door instead. “But I got lost in the hall.”

“Not stupid at all,” was Baekhyun being sarcastic or trying to make him feel better? Jongin couldn’t tell. “Follow me. I’ll take you to the door.”

Jongin was about to argue that he didn’t need to be guided across the _hall_ but, since factual evidence proved otherwise, he decided to shut up and follow. This time, he looked forward all the time – most of the time, at least, his eyes did wander distractedly along the wall once – and, when they finished the path and found themselves facing another blank wall, Jongin frowned, flabbergasted. _How_?

Baekhyun turned around, expression no longer reassuring, but suspicious. “As you might have noticed,” he said, eyes scanning the wall with some scorn. “There’s something fishy going on here.”

Glad that he wasn’t imagining things, Jongin nodded. “What is happening?” He asked, in hopes Baekhyun would say that was a normal supernatural happening, which would be more reassuring than ‘I don’t know’.

“No idea,” Baekhyun crushed Jongin’s hopes mercilessly, looking around the room with his hands on his hips. His rather small hips. Baekhyun was a pretty diminutive humanoid. “It looks like the hotel is consciously trying to stop you from leaving. Normally, this kind of place stops humans from coming in, but I’ve never heard of one refusing to let a human out.” So it was sort of normal, then? Jongin waited for details, and Baekhyun shrugged. “This one must have been poorly built. I’ll try to breach it. Follow me.”

There was no option for Jongin but to do as told. As he followed the demon closely, his eyes wandered to the wall again, catching sight of a grotesque drawing: it was a tall, decrepit building, much like the hotel from outside, drawn in dark graphite. As Jongin stared at it in curiosity, the picture slowly, very slowly, gyrated on the wall.

Jongin gaped, pale. “B-Baekhyun sshi,” he called brusquely, reaching for the demon’s arm. “Baekhyun sshi, the drawing…”

Baekhyun stopped walking, turning around to look at the drawing. He made a face. “Kitsch,” he criticized. “What about it?”

“It moved—like, it moved by itself,” Jongin made rotational moves with his hands, trying to make Baekhyun understand why he was so alarmed. Baekyun narrowed his eyes.

“Clockwise?” Jongin could only gape at that question, because what could even be the point? He obviously didn’t know. “Well, never mind. Don’t—oh.”

It was moving again. This time, Jongin was careful to observe: clockwise. Baekhyun tensed visibly beside him. “Okay. That wasn’t cool. Let’s get you out of here.”

Would it have been fine if it had been counterclockwise? Jongin seriously didn’t understand. All he did know was that Baekhyun was suddenly nervous, walking much faster than before, and suddenly all frames were gyrating on the walls and _what the fuck_.

“What is going on?” Jongin asked in a panicked voice, the friction of thousands frames grinding against the wall creating an ear-splitting sound.

Baekhyun didn’t answer; he might not even have heard him, he was too focused on reaching the door. Jongin saw the front door very clearly, right in front of them, dark and tall and bruised on the edges—

—but suddenly they were suddenly facing another wall, not a whole meter away from them. Instead of being blank, this wall had a very big black-and-white photograph hung to it, one that could have been cut away from a newspaper if there actually were newspapers that big. The photograph depicted a well-dressed man with an austere frown, glinting eyes, lips curved in a half-smile. Baekhyun immediately halted still.

“Heh,” the demon made a sound between a snort and a whimper. He let out a humorless laugh, staring at the picture with blank eyes. He then turned around to face Jongin with an apologetic smile. “Shit has officially hit the fan.”

Just like any other human in his situation, Jongin felt like crying. “What do we do? Where do we go? What is happening?”

“An authority found us. Said authority is clearly not pleased,” Baekhyun said by way of an answer, grabbing Jongin’s arm rather roughly and guiding him to the stairs. Luckily, the stairs didn’t move, or didn’t have time to move, and quickly enough Baekhyun was dragging him up the creaking steps. “I don’t know where to go, but we can’t stay here any longer. Watch this step, it’s—”

Jongin shoved his foot right into a rotten step, getting his ankle trapped. Stings of pain went up his leg as the blisters pierced his skin.

“—loose. Okay,” Baekhyun sighed, standing between frustration and sympathy. Holding Jongin by his shoulders, he carelessly destroyed the rest of the step, freeing Jongin’s ankle and leaving a gaping hole right in the middle of the stairs. “Climb onto my back. Quick. Now.”

It didn’t seem like a good idea, and it wasn’t. Jongin was much bigger than Baekhyun, and, consequently, much heavier: by the time they reached the bedroom, Jongin’s legs were awkwardly sliding from Baekhyun’s grip, even if Baekhyun himself didn’t look tired at all. Jongin’s ankle was bleeding, some blisters still stuck to the flesh. Inside of the room, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were fully dressed and standing up, apparently caught in the middle of a quarrel.

“Stop everything you’re doing,” Baekhyun commanded, panting slightly as he let Jongin slide to the floor. “Place is going down. Kyungsoo’s boss found us.”

“Again!” Chanyeol grimaced.

“You being here with him,” Kyungsoo pointed at Jongin’s face. “Means we can’t leave through the front door.”

“Congrats! You’re observant,” Baekhyun was smiling, but his voice was dripping with sarcasm. “Out of the window, both of you. I’m entrusting Chanyeol to you.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Kyungsoo shot Chanyeol a bitter glance, which was answered with a childish stir of tongue. Nevertheless, they climbed onto the window together, Chanyeol backhugging Kyungsoo tightly before both of them jumped off the window as if it were no big deal.

Considering that they weren’t mortal, it probably wasn’t.

“Okay, Jonginnie. We’re about to do a dangerous thing,” Baekhyun was smiling way too wide for someone who was about to do a dangerous thing. Demons. They were probably all like that. “Hold onto me, will you? Just not around my arms.”

Easier said than done. Jongin was not entirely comfortable with having to touch Baekhyun’s unclothed torso again, and settled for wrapping his arms loosely around his waist.

Baekhyun chuckled. “Tighter. Unless you enjoy free falls.”

That was enough to make Jongin pull Baekhyun closer, chest flush against his petite back, but not enough to erase the consequent embarrassment. Baekhyun seemed not to notice Jongin’s conflict, and clumsily guided their joined bodies to the edge of the window. Effortlessly, he broke the wall around the window’s wooden frame, enlarging the hole they were about to go through. Jongin watched in awe as the bricked wall crumbled like flour under his fists.

“Wanna see a _really_ cool trick?” Baekhyun turned his head to smile at him, and Jongin could only stare, because his eyes – his eyes were so bright and hot and _dangerous_ , they were frightening. “Watch this.”

Jongin watched. He watched as Baekhyun breathed in and out slowly, back heaving against Jongin’s chest, and saw some of his hair move up as if attracted by static. Soon, from the mat of burnt sienna hair, emerged two rounded horns, growing and growing until getting as long as a pencil, curved like a buffalo’s.

The air cracked, and a surge of heat licked Jongin’s face. Before any of them could make a sound, the room before them exploded in flames.

“Hold on tight!” Baekhyun screamed gleefully before pulling Jongin’s legs up and jumping off the window.

In usual situations, Jongin would have found it uncomfortable to be carried like a human backpack, but, at that moment, such feeling paled in comparison to the sheer panic of falling from such a high place. The streets below them seemed to be painfully distant, and Jongin’s stomach made a violent turn at the sight.

But then, instead of simply falling, Baekhyun started running on the wall, body perpendicular to the building, taking them down at a vertiginous speed. Jongin was aware that his own body was weighing them down, and started crying at the feeling of unavoidable doom that invaded his head; Baekhyun, however, was far from being apprehensive. He sounded like he was laughing.

“Tighter, Jongin!” He commanded, and Jongin’s nails dug into the flesh of his chest as he held onto the demon for his dear life. Wind wiped their cheeks and made Jongin’s eyes burn, tears moistening his lashes and the sides of his face. He was downright sobbing at this point. The floor was coming, the floor was coming, it was coming, they were so dead, _they were going to be flattened against the concrete at any second_ —

Jongin didn’t even see what happened. All he knew was that the world was suddenly upright, he was sliding from Baekhyun’s back, his nose was running and he really needed to vomit.

“They went ahead,” Baekhyun announced, but Jongin didn’t comprehend, he was still trying to compute how had they not died, why were they suddenly running on the streets instead, as if they had just left through the front door. The smoke started to catch up with them. Behind their backs, the building made a pitiful cracking noise. “Get in the car, quick.”

Baekhyun shoved him into the passenger seat of his own car, while settling for the driver seat himself. Jongin would’ve asked him whether he could drive, but, as soon as Baekhyun started up and almost ran them into a nearby wall, it was quite obvious that he couldn’t.

“This isn’t as hard as I thought,” Baekhyun said rather calmly as he dodged a trash bin by millimeters. Jongin could no longer control his crying, and was trying to muffle his sobs with his hands. Baekhyun shot him a glance, one that could have been a _calm down_ or an _I’m sorry_ , but he didn’t actually say anything. “We’re gonna find Kyungsoo and Chanyeol in a second, don’t worry.”

Jongin made an effort to at least hide his face, since he could no longer stop bawling, and ended up curled on his seat like a cat while Baekhyun drove madly along the streets, eventually getting them in an area that seemed like the limits of the city. Fifteen minutes went on before Baekhyun finally pulled over in front of an abandoned storehouse, almost hitting a tree in his attempt to get off the road. Jongin had stopped crying, and his eyes were starting to swell.

“They’re here,” it was raining, invisible drizzling rain that did nothing but make people cold. Baekhyun was still shirtless, and the hand he lent Jongin so to help him off the car was hot to the touch. “Are you feeling better now?”

Jongin turned red. He really wished he hadn’t cried. “Yeah,” he mumbled weakly, getting on his feet, grimacing when pain shot up from his injured ankle. Well, at least he hadn’t pissed himself or anything. “I’m fine.”

Baekhyun nodded, leaving the car for Jongin to lock. That’s when Jongin realized – Baekhyun had started the engine without the keys.

“Two buildings burnt just today,” Baekhyun sighed, not sounding very upset about it. “The tenth just this week. My boss would be pleased if he wasn’t so pissed at me.”

Jongin blinked, sniffing quietly. “Your boss is pissed at you?”

“Oh, very much so,” Baekhyun gave Jongin a sly smile. “He’s furious. He never really liked me, and now he just might turn me into cosmic dust as soon as he gets his paws on my pretty face.”

“Oh,” Jongin winced. The idea didn’t sound very pleasant. He limped behind Baekhyun, trying to catch up with the demon. “Was it him at the hotel?”

“No, that was Kyungsoo’s boss. Twice as dangerous, ten times more furious,” Baekhyun really looked like he was having fun. The look faded away, however, when he turned around and saw that Jongin was limping. “Ah, right. Does it still hurt?”

Jongin nodded. “It’s okay, though,” he was quick to add, but Baekhyun was already beside him, putting Jongin’s arm around his shoulders while sliding an arm around his waist. Baekhyun’s skin was heated, despite the sheen of raindrops covering his arms.

“I’ve been carrying you around a lot today, isn’t it so?” Baekhyun joked, and Jongin was forced to gloomily agree.

Kyungsoo and Chanyeol were inside the storehouse, right in the middle of it, sitting on an old, putrid mattress. Or rather, Kyungsoo was seating; Chanyeol was lying down, head on Kyungsoo’s lap, apparently asleep. Jongin’s jaw went slack. _Wings_.

“Are we interrupting something?” Baekhyun asked jeeringly, his voice echoing harshly in the empty storehouse. Kyungsoo looked in their direction, and Jongin blinked. Had he imagined it, the white wings on Kyungsoo’s back?

“No,” Kyungsoo answered bitterly, face red. “We were waiting for you. Quite the show you put there.”

“You saw?” Baekhyun smiled, eyes glinting. He then glanced at Chanyeol. “What’s up with him?”

“He’s exhausted,” Kyungsoo answered, looking down, fingers tracing the line of Chanyeol’s jaw tenderly. “He could barely stay awake while we got here. Let him sleep.”

It hit Jongin. The way Kyungsoo said that, the way his fingers touched Chanyeol’s skin… “Kyungsoo sshi,” he called out suddenly, voice thankfully not too loud. “You’re Chanyeol sshi’s guardian angel, aren’t you?”

Kyungsoo looked up in surprise, at the same time Baekhyun looked up in amusement. Perhaps that had been a dumb question to ask. However, it made Kyungsoo smile, and Kyungsoo’s smile made Jongin feel like nothing wrong had ever happened in his life. “Yes,” still smiling, he glanced down to Chanyeol’s sleeping face, sighing softly. “Not a very good one, but,” his fingers brushed lightly against Chanyeol’s cheek, caressing the wandering soul with pure adoration. “I am.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes, apparently disgusted, and walked away from them, out of their sight. Jongin followed him with his eyes, puzzled by his reaction.

“Your ankle,” Kyungsoo called suddenly, and Jongin turned back to him. As if answering a calling, his ankle throbbed. “Let me see it.”

Careful not to kick anyone, specially not Chanyeol, Jongin lifted his injured leg to the mattress, and Kyungsoo started working on it. He removed all the blisters with ease, with such dexterity that Jongin didn’t feel a thing; after all the blisters were off, the angel started massaging the bruised area, careful not to move too much and disturb Chanyeol’s sleep. In no more than five minutes, Jongin ankle was completely restored, as if it had never been injured at all.

“Wow,” Jongin said, examining the healed skin with awe.

“Don’t mention it.” Kyungsoo sighed. “I wasn’t supposed to do this to you but, well,” he shrugged, a hand finding Chanyeol’s hair and caressing it for distraction. “Baekhyun and I broke so many rules already that I don’t think it matters anymore.”

Jongin thought about it. Rules, huh… he supposed that forming an alliance with a demon was probably against the celestial rules. “But Kyungsoo sshi,” Jongin spoke out. “The rules you broke… you were trying to stop Chanyeol sshi from dying, right?”

Kyungsoo raised his eyes to face him. “That’s right,” he said faintly.

“Then,” Jongin carried on. “Can you really be punished for it? I mean, you’re his guardian angel. Is it really that bad that you broke some rules when you were just trying to save him?”

The angel didn’t answer immediately. He broke eye contact, eyes down once again, and a sad smile graced his lips. “Salvation,” his answer came barely above a whisper, hesitant, melancholic. “is a very relative thing, you know.”

Jongin honestly did not understand.


	3. salvation.

“Found things,” Baekhyun suddenly announced from somewhere distant, startling both Jongin and Kyungsoo. Soon enough, dusty cushions and rotten mattresses came flying in their direction, falling on the floor with sickening ‘plops’ and waking Chanyeol up. A cushion hit the wandering soul right on the face, positively startling him.

“What is going on?!” he shouted, sitting up so suddenly that the top of his head almost hit Kyungsoo’s chin. He fumbled with the cushion for a while until he realized it wasn’t an enemy. He then glanced around and saw Jongin. “Oh!” his eyes widened, and he smiled. “You made it! Great. Is Baekhyun here as well?”

“Right here,” Baekhyun emerged from behind a pile of discarded chairs. “You woke up! Good morning.”

“More like afternoon,” Chanyeol chuckled, stiffening a yawn. True. It was probably past lunchtime already… “How did it turn out with the hotel?”

Baekhyun smiled devilishly, his eyes, once again, gleaming in that particular way. Kyungsoo huffed, obviously disapproving of it, but Chanyeol laughed in enjoyment. “You’re great.”

“You need clothes,” Kyungsoo remarked rather bitterly. “And shoes,” he said after noticing Baekhyun was barefoot.

“Yeah, I thought about walking into town dressed like this and just grab some clothes,” Baekhyun said acidly, kicking a cushion into a favorable position before sitting down. “Get some munchies while I’m at it.”

“Don’t be silly. You know that’s not what I meant,” Kyungsoo muttered, pouting slightly.

“I can go,” Jongin offered, and he might as well have screamed at them, because they looked at him as if he had. He blinked, taken aback by the reaction. “I have some money. And a car. I can buy some things.”

They stared at him in silence for a good minute. Chanyeol seemed to think that was a good idea, but hesitated to say so. Despite not looking at each other, it was like Kyungsoo and Baekhyun were having a staring contest.

“I should—”

“No,” Kyungsoo cut Baekhyun off immediately. “He should go by himself.”

“ _And not come back_ , you mean,” Baekhyun threw back. By how Kyungsoo retreated, Jongin could tell that’s exactly what he meant, and felt a bit hurt. “It’s not gonna work. You saw how it ended up back at the hotel.”

“He’s not who they’re after,” Kyungsoo retorted. “He got caught in the middle. Since the beginning—”

“What makes you think he’s not involved?” Baekhyun interrupted him.

“Don’t play dumb with me, Baekhyun!” Kyungsoo shouted suddenly, and Jongin flinched when he heard thunder outside. “You know what they want from us! You know it really well!”

“Yes I do,” Baekhyun crossed his arms, eyes defiant, threatening to spill some kind of amused wrath. “Do you, though?”

Kyungsoo said nothing, lips pursed. He looked like he was holding some rich insults inside. He took a deep breath before saying, cautiously placid, “it’s about _that_ , then?”

It was Baekhyun’s turn to be at a loss. He stared at Kyungsoo as if he had said something unbelievable, an almost imperceptible twitch under his eye. Jongin glanced at Chanyeol, waiting for some kind of explanation, but the wandering soul looked as lost as he was, shrugging discreetly, _I have no idea either_. Soon enough, Baekhyun turned to Jongin with a saccharine smile.

“Children,” he directed the same smile to Chanyeol, then got up, pulling Kyungsoo up with him. “Seems like Soo and I have some adult matters to discuss. Wait for us right here, will you? We’ll be right back.”

Before Chanyeol and Jongin could say anything, Baekhyun dragged Kyungsoo away, outside, right to the middle of raging rain. The storehouse’s door made a deafening ‘pang’ nose when closed. Chanyeol and Jongin exchanged glances.

“Do you think they’re gonna’ fight?” Chanyeol asked hesitantly. “Like, use their powers against each other?”

Jongin shrugged, slightly scared. “What kind of powers does Kyungsoo sshi have?”

“Lots of them. Flying, healing,” Chanyeol listed, counting them in his fingers. “Creating shields, breathing underwater. I mean… do angels breathe? I don’t actually know.”

Jongin didn’t know either. He was afraid they would actually fight outside, with magic and all. If they did… he’s not sure of who would win, but he’s sure it’d be a highly destructive quarrel. “I wonder what they were fighting about…”

“Same. They fight all the time, but it seemed more serious this time,” Chanyeol confessed, fumbling with a loose piece of the mattress. He then looked up, straight into Jongin’s eyes, and Jongin was startled to find in Chanyeol’s glance the same menacing gleam he often saw in Baekhyun’s. “Should we go check on them?” he suggested with a grin.

Jongin wasn’t sure that was a good idea, but, at the same time, he was really curious and anxious about them having an argument. He glanced at the door. There was no way to open it silently. “There aren’t any windows…”

“We can just…” Chanyeol seemed to have an idea, but interrupted himself. “… go through the wall. Okay, maybe not. Man, you should really consider being half-dead someday, everything becomes so more convenient.”

“My time will come,” Jongin half-joked, getting up, dusting his hands on the knees of his jeans. Chanyeol laughed heartily at that.

There were no windows, but there was an area where the wall was broken, like a bullet wound; not properly a hole, but could be perforated easily. Jongin decided not to risk attracting attention to falling debris, and simply leaned his ear against the thinner part of the wound. All he could hear was the heavy rain hitting the building.

“Can’t hear anything,” Chanyeol came back from the wall, looking displeased and a bit damp. “It’s raining buckets, and they’re almost on the road,” he complained before going back into the wall. Jongin presumed he was looking for thin spots from inside, and waited patiently. Soon enough, Chanyeol’s head emerged from the wall, fairly far from where Jongin was. “Found a thing! Hurry!”

Jongin hurried to the corner where Chanyeol stood, now outside of the wall and carefully displacing some metal structures. There it was: poorly disguised by old pipes and wet debris, a huge hole, about the size of an adult man. As soon as there was space, Jongin crawled nearer to the hole, making a face as the water pooled on the floor seeped through his jeans. Chanyeol simply kneeled beside him as if there were no objects interfering.

They could see Baekhyun and Kyungsoo rather clearly from there, despite the distance and the pouring rain. Both of them looked damp, withered, and tense; Jongin could practically hear the air cracking. They were yelling at each other, and Jongin could only make some words.

“… stop being so childish…”

“… none of your business…”

“… you owe me, you know that?”

“… nothing to do with…”

“… the masterpiece boy scheme…”

Jongin’s ears perked at that. His mind flashed back to the hotel’s hall, to the headlines. **FOUND: THE MASTERPIECE BOY!**

“YOU CAN’T PRETEND THIS ISN’T ABOUT YOU ANYMORE!” Baekhyun screamed from the top of his lungs, so loud that it echoed a little.

“IT _ISN’T_ ,” Kyungsoo managed to scream even louder, furious. Lightning cracked, thunder roared. Jongin caught a glimpse of Baekhyun’s horns, and smelled trouble heavy in the air. “IT HAS NEVER BEEN!”

“Shit is going down, oh Lord,” Chanyeol pulled Jongin away from the hole, dragging him back to where the mattresses were. “We have to stop them before they cause the apocalypse.”

“How are we going to stop them?” No matter how much Jongin wanted to interrupt the fight, he didn’t think walking on them and yelling ‘STOP!’ was a good idea.

“I have an idea, stand there,” Chanyeol commanded, pointing to a pile of overturned tables. He himself stood pretty far away from Jongin, which gave the human man the alarming idea that he was about to do something dangerous. A grin spread on Chanyeol’s lips, a maniac grin that did nothing but confirm Jongin’s fears. “Wanna see a cool trick?”

Jongin didn’t have time to answer – didn’t even have the time to compute the perilous glint in Chanyeol’s eyes. The next second, Chanyeol was bursting to flames with a sickening hiss.

Jongin screamed. He screamed, and screamed, wide eyes fixed on the human form burning right in front of him. He hastily retreated, knocking the tables down, leading to a landslide that knocked him on the head and immobilized him to the floor.

He heard the storehouse’s door open with a bang, at the same time as he felt the tables start to dig into his ribs. A confusion of sounds: loud steps, a slap, screaming, the sound of metal scraping the floor. The tables shifted, hurting his arms and legs – and all of the sudden they were off him, and Jongin was breathing deeply as Baekhyun pulled him up.

“Jongin. Jongin, are you okay?” Baekhyun held Jongin by his shoulders, and droplets of rain flew from his hair onto Jongin’s cheek and neck. Cold. Jongin nodded.

“I’m sorry, Jongin sshi, I’m sorry,” Chanyeol whimpered, and Jongin looked for him. At the same time, Baekhyun snapped his head around to stare at him.

“You could have killed him,” Baekhyun hissed viciously, horns slightly visible under his hair. Chanyeol was standing behind Kyungsoo, one cheek red; so he had been the one slapped. Kyungsoo stood before him like a shield, drenched, small. “You almost killed him, do you know that?”

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I’m really sorry” Jongin felt sorry for Chanyeol. He was on the verge of tears. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m fine,” Jongin reassured him, trying not to wince at the stab of pain in his ribs. “I’m okay. It was my fault.”

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Baekhyun asked him, helping him up. It was the first time Jongin saw Baekhyun that serious. Even back at the hotel, when everything had gone wrong, he had been laughing at the dangerous situation, always in a good mood: at that moment, however, he looked stern, and furious, and slightly scary.

“No, I’m fine. It’s my fault, I didn’t pay attention to where I was going,” Jongin reassured them, standing upright. He just wanted all of them to calm down. Well, at least Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had stopped fighting… “We should go to the city, Baekhyun sshi, buy you a shirt and a jacket. You must be cold.”

The silence that followed seemed to be full of confusion. Jongin was puzzled by it, until he saw Chanyeol biting back a laugh and understood – had he really said ‘you must be cold’ to a fire demon? He and Chanyeol burst into laughter simultaneously, followed suit by Baekhyun himself. Even Kyungsoo, shivering and dripping water, chuckled a little.

“Yes, sure, I’m freezing,” Baekhyun said, his jeering grin finally reappearing. It was a relief for Jongin. “We also need to grab some food for you. Anything else we might need?”

“Peace of mind,” Kyungsoo said.

“Celestial forgiveness,” Chanyeol suggested.

Baekhyun laughed drily. “Blankets, then,” he told Jongin, and the other two seemed satisfied with that. “We’ll take a while to come back, so have fun.”

“Take care!” Kyungsoo shouted as they left the storehouse, and Baekhyun rolled his eyes. Jongin, however, was happy to hear that, and answered with a wave of hand.

The rain had subsided for the time being, but the ground was muddy and disgusting. Jongin winced when the mud got all over his car’s floor, but there was no help to it. While browsing his own pockets for the keys, Jongin noticed that something about Baekhyun was off. What was it…? Baekhyun was facing forward, body relaxed, face blank and perfectly neutral. And yet… there was something weird in him.

“I think we should buy you a leather jacket,” Jongin suddenly blurted out, after fifteen minutes of horrible awkward silence. They were already on their way to the city, and Baekhyun had yet to say a word, which made Jongin very uneasy. “Don’t you think it’d suit you? Maybe we could buy leather pants as well.”

“Why leather?” Baekhyun asked politely, making Jongin even more uneasy. Jongin couldn’t look away from the road just now, but he hoped Baekhyun wasn’t looking at him with the blank face from before.

“Leather. Hm, black leather. It’s a bad boy thing. Since you’re a demon and all…” Jongin answered, licking his lips when he noticed what he said made very little sense. “It’s a hot material as well. People sweat in it and all.”

“You mean it’s a good insulator,” Baekhyun said, and Jongin is relieved to hear a hint of mockery in his voice. Maybe he shouldn’t feel good about being made fun of, but at least it indicated Baekhyun was acting normal with him.

“Yes, yes. Fire and such. It’d look good on you,” Jongin’s own words made him blush. He wished he could stop talking, but he couldn’t; it was like something had snapped loose inside of him. “Also, a sleeveless tee. Maybe an earring. A punk look would be nice. Leather boots, too, with big buckles.”

He ranted about clothes for half an hour, until his throat hurt, all while silently praying Baekhyun would just shut him up. The demon, however, rarely even interacted with him, as if he enjoyed watching Jongin go on about how big silver rings go nicely with leather bracelets. As much as it bothered Jongin, that he was making such a huge fool of himself, maybe it was Baekhyun’s pleased smirk and the jeering glint of his eyes that encouraged him to go on, to embarrass him a little further just so Baekhyun would have his share of fun on his behalf. Maybe Jongin was a masochist. Maybe. Most probably.

“So—so,” he quickly looked around when they finally arrived a commercial area of the city, searching for a parking spot. “Where should we start, huh…”

“Park here,” Baekhyun commanded, pointing to a spot on the left of a beauty parlor. Jongin failed to understand why they’re going to a beauty parlor, but complied, parked, turned off the car and waited for Baekhyun to climb off first. He didn’t. The demon kept staring forward with the blank expression from before, and Jongin didn’t like that at all.

“Jongin,” Baekhyun suddenly spoke up, licking his lips. He turned his head, looking at Jongin with a cryptic smile on his lips. “Do you like fire?”

Jongin blinked, taken aback. What kind of question was that? He hated it. He hated it, didn’t he? “I hate it,” he said, and somehow, for some reason, those words felt out of place in his mouth. “I… really hate it. I’ve hated it since I was a kid.” Wrong. Why did it sound so wrong? “I have nightmares. Me dying in a fire. I don’t like it.”

Why did it sound like he was trying to convince himself?

“You know I’m an arsonist, don’t you?” Baekhyun said. Jongin didn’t like the direction Baekhyun was leading him to. “More than that, actually. I basically _am_ fire.” The demon tilted his head, still smiling, but that was a smile Jongin really didn’t want to see on his face. “You hate me, then, don’t you?”

“I don’t!” Jongin quickly shouted, desperate to interrupt that line of thought. “I don’t.” He repeated more firmly, lips pressed in a tight line. “I really don’t. I don’t hate you at all.”

“Oh, but you should,” Baekhyun leaned forward, smile turning cruel. His eyes were opaque, dark like bottomless pits. “I’m the thing that kills people like in your nightmares, Jongin,” he was close. Close enough for Jongin’s slightly altered breath to brush against his cheeks and lashes. “I burn houses down with everyone inside. I blow gas stations up. I blow fuses, I knock candles over. These hands,” he lifted one hand, one bony white hand, as if he was about to slap Jongin. “Have been burning people to death for _centuries_.”

“You protected me,” Jongin said, eyes studying Baekhyun’s face. What was it? What was about Baekhyun at that moment that bothered him so much? “At the hotel, and just now, when the tables fell on me.”

Baekhyun let out a hearty, dry laugh. His eyes were taunting. “Was I protecting you?” the words rolled from his lips slowly, but heavily. “Or was I just protecting myself?”

Jongin fell silent. What did Baekhyun mean…? He browsed his mind for something that he could refute that theory with – something, anything that could prove to Baekhyun that it made no sense for him to say that – but the idea had been planted in his mind.

“Every single time I helped you, I could be trying to save my ass instead,” Baekhyun went on, leaning away from Jongin’s personal space. “And you wouldn’t know, because you’re really _that_ naïve.”

Jongin gaped, searching for words. There had to be something, there had to be some evidence against what Baekhyun was saying, but he could find none.

“Look at how you admire Kyungsoo, after all,” Baekhyun chuckled humorlessly. “You sure think he’s trying that hard just to save Chanyeol, right? You think he’s trying to bring Chanyeol back to life just to see him alive and happy?”

“He’s,” Jongin interrupted, slightly outraged. “He’s Chanyeol’s angel! Of course—”

“ _Of course he’s trying to save Chanyeol!_ , right?” Baekhyun chuckled again, shaking his head. His tone was incredibly distant and unpleasant, his voice icy cold. “Poor you. Let me give you some info on what Kyungsoo is actually doing,” his smile was sweet poison. “He did tell you Chanyeol is not supposed to be dead, didn’t he?”

Jongin blinked. In fact… in fact, Kyungsoo hadn’t. He hadn’t, and Jongin shook his head to say so, but he really should have connected the dots, because it was just too obvious.

“Thought so. He didn’t tell you everything, after all,” and Jongin felt unreasonably upset at that. “But it’s pretty obvious. So, let me explain. A guardian angel protects a person with negative factors until—”

“Negative factors?” Jongin thoughtlessly interrupted. Baekhyun raised his brows.

“Bad karma. Bad destiny. It’s too complicated to explain right now,” Baekhyun dismissed it with a hand gesture. “A guardian angel protects a person with negative factors until it’s their time to die. Chanyeol died in a whim of destiny, much sooner than when he’s actually supposed to die. Which means Kyungsoo failed his mission,” Baekhyun grinned, as if he took great delight in saying those words. “Do you know what happens when angels fail their mission, Jonginnie?”

Jongin’s blood ran cold. He shook his head slowly.

“They fall,” Baekhyun all but whispered, baring his teeth in a grotesque smile. He looked menacing, a living nightmare, an assassin. “Their wings get plucked, and they fall all the way down the filthiest depths of hell. Their souls are slowly, painfully crushed, until there’s no trace of their existence in the karmic map,” Jongin’s mind was blank, vacant, as all color vanished from his face. “If it were you, you’d want to save yourself, wouldn’t you? So did selfless little Kyungsoo.”

“But,” Jongin still couldn’t understand. All of that made sense, and, at the same time, didn’t make sense at all. “But—”

“So what if I only protected you not to get your blood on my shoes?” Baekhyun suddenly leaned forward again, so fast that Jongin thought – for the slightest moment, Jongin thought, and felt ashamed for thinking so, that Baekhyun was going to kiss him. “It’d be bad for me. Chanyeol’s premature death already put me in deep water. Adding you to that count would only bring me trouble.”

Jongin’s eyes swelled with tears. He didn’t want to believe that. He didn’t want to believe that he had only been a burden so far, and he didn’t want to believe that Baekhyun’s feelings towards him were so cold and indifferent. He didn’t want to believe it – and yet, there was no help to it. There was nothing else to believe.

“Don’t go back to the storehouse,” Baekhyun commanded in a steely voice, smile gone as he leaned away from Jongin and opened the car’s door to climb off. “Even if you do, we’ll already be gone. I’ll tell them you decided not to go back. Everyone will think you made the right decision.”

“Baekhyun sshi,” Jongin called out weakly as the demon left the car, still wearing nothing but worn out pajama pants. “Baekhyun sshi!” he raised his voice, and Baekhyun finally did turn around, looking annoyed and impatient. Jongin did his best to push back his tears. There was one thing he needed to know before Baekhyun left him, before his unbelievable adventure came to an end and he went back to his daily life of buying groceries and looking for a job.

“What is the Masterpiece Boy Scheme?”

It was as if he had slapped Baekhyun on the face. The demon’s eyes went wide, shocked, and all the previous impenetrableness faded. For the slightest of the seconds, he seemed to be at a loss of words – just like when Kyungsoo had started the fight back at the storehouse – but then, in the next second, he only looked angry and distant.

“Something that’s none of your business,” he hissed, and Jongin was genuinely hurt. The demon vanished in the air before Jongin’s first tear could escape from his eyes.

Just like that, he was gone.


	4. park chanyeol.

In all honesty, Jongin didn’t want to cry, so he fought back the urge, rubbed his eyes so the tears wouldn’t fall. It was stupid to cry because of a thing like that, but… there was a sudden feeling of emptiness inside of him that _hurt_. As if it were nibbling at the corners of his soul.

“The masterpiece boy scheme,” a sudden voice spoke out, deep, and Jongin jumped on his seat. It came from inside the car. “Is a mission that went wrong.”

A glimpse of long limbs and pale skin. Jongin turned around, heart hammering inside of his chest, only to find Chanyeol on his backseat. For someone so big, the ghost seemed shriveled, and his eyes were wet and red. Jongin felt self-conscious about his own almost-crying face.

“Chanyeol sshi,” Jongin said by way of a greeting, actually just wanting to make sure he wasn’t seeing things.

“That’s what Kyungsoo told me,” Chanyeol sniffed, shrugging. “So, that’s probably it, if Kyungsoo’s to be trusted at all.”

He had heard it. The entire conversation with Baekhyun. Jongin bit his lip, feeling weirdly guilty for that, as Chanyeol slid through the passenger’s seat and occupied it. “Who knew Baekhyun could be so mean, huh.”

“He’s a demon,” there was a quiver in Jongin’s voice. “It’s what they do.”

Chanyeol sniffed again. Jongin was starting to sniff too. Holding back the tears was not an easy task, specially not after seeing Chanyeol in a similar state. Imagining the hurt Chanyeol must have felt after hearing about Kyungsoo’s real intent only worsened Jongin’s own feeling of emptiness.

“Before we met you, I heard them mentioning it once,” Chanyeol suddenly said, voice a bit weak. “The masterpiece boy thing, I mean. It’s apparently a well-known scandal of some sorts. Every time they argued, it had something to do with it.”

Jongin nodded, thinking about it. A mission that went wrong… “So it’s probably you,” Jongin said, glancing at Chanyeol with his moist, stinging eyes. Chanyeol glanced back at him, a bit questioningly. “It’s a mission that went wrong, right? So it’s probably you. That’s why Kyungsoo sshi and Baekhyun sshi always fought about it.”

Chanyeol looked like he was pouting a bit. He nodded. “It crossed my mind,” he admitted, looking away from Jongin. “But, just, you know… why would Baekhyun be involved in this? It makes no sense. Of course Kyungsoo would be in trouble,” the way he said Kyungsoo’s name was a tad bit resentful. “But what does Baekhyun have to do with this? What does he have to do with me?”

Jongin thought about it too. His mind was still slightly clouded from the confrontation with Baekhyun, the lingering hurt damaging his thought process, but an idea descended on him all of sudden.

That was it. He knew exactly what he had to do to obtain the answers.

“There’s a place we can go,” Jongin told Chanyeol, starting the car’s engine a bit manically. “There’s a place that can help us to find out.”

“Find out?” Chanyeol looked at him with curiosity. “About Baekhyun?”

“About everything,” Jongin muttered, leaving the parking spot a bit too violently.

Jongin drove fast, recklessly, for reasons that he himself couldn’t fully understand. A surge of obsessive desperation had taken over his body, guiding his driving, guiding his thoughts, leading him to that one place that had all the answers. Baekhyun’s words no longer mattered. Kyungsoo’s twisted reasons no longer mattered. All that mattered was the place – that one place.

He only stopped driving when they arrived at a hospital. It was a hospital Jongin had never been to before; tall, white, antiseptic. A plain, slightly small hospital. _There_.

“Here?” Chanyeol had apparently never been there either. Jongin nodded, assured, even though he didn’t know how why he was so sure. Wordlessly, he went in, and Chanyeol followed him.

The hospital’s hall was completely empty. Completely, absolutely. Not a soul, not a shadow, not a sound; just the distant, soft sound of a ticking clock, and nothing else. A chill went up Jongin’s arm, but he kept moving forward, determined, with Chanyeol hesitant on his heels. There was only one way to find out the truth about the Masterpiece Boy scheme, and that way was being there…

… for what? Jongin stopped walking, glancing at his own shoes with his brows furrowed. Now that they were there… what were they supposed to do? What were they there for? A sudden sense of emptiness filled Jongin violently, disorienting him momentarily, making him sway on his feet. _What were they there for?_

“Welcome,” a voice suddenly rung through the hall, startling Chanyeol to the point of making him cling onto Jongin’s shoulders. The voice came from the front desk, about three meters away from them, where a receptionist is looking at them with a polite smile. After an initial moment of stillness, Jongin and Chanyeol moved towards her, as it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Her smile widened imperceptibly. Despite the strangeness of the atmosphere, Jongin couldn’t help but noticing how pretty she was, even if she did look a good deed older than him.

“May I help you?” she asked when none of them said a thing. They blinked, and Jongin decided to take the lead.

“We’re here to visit Park Chanyeol,” the words spilled from his lips automatically. Only after they were said did Jongin think about them – what? Where had that come from?

She nodded, mumbling ‘Park Chanyeol’ while going through some files. Chanyeol watched the scene with visible confusion, body tense, grip still tight on Jongin’s shoulders. Jongin wished he could provide the wandering soul with the necessary comfort, or at least a small explanation, but he himself had no idea of why he was doing what he was doing.

Eventually, the receptionist seemed to find Chanyeol’s name, and looked up to them again. “Are you his family?” Her voice was unlike a woman’s, and suddenly Jongin wasn’t that sure whether she was a woman anymore.

“Brothers,” Chanyeol surprised Jongin by answering. “Younger,” he pointed at Jongin, “older,” he pointed at himself.

The receptionist nodded. “I’ll show you the way. Follow me,” she/he got up, leading them across the hall. A bit hesitantly, Jongin and Chanyeol followed the receptionist, pulling each other closer, seeking instinctively for protection.

If a feeling of deadness was looming over the hall, such feeling was twice more apparent and palpable in the hallway behind a large set of metal doors. There, in the dark, impersonal hallway, the receptionist’s steps barely made any sound, but her/his shadows reached far, far past them on the floor, and on the walls. The hands Jongin had on Chanyeol’s arm were clammy. The poor lighting was making him terribly uncomfortable.

They walked past many doors, all closed and seemingly empty. The hallway made a turn, and they followed it, Jongin’s flesh creeping with the cold air that seemed to seep from behind one of the doors. And they walked, and they walked, and they walked. They walked for a long period of time, distracted by the doors and the framed photographs on the wall, only slightly aware of the sound of steps ahead them.

“Jongin,” Chanyeol whispered at a certain moment, and Jongin glanced at him to show he was listening. Chanyeol said nothing else. Anxiety started to burn in Jongin’s stomach.

“What?” he whispered back at the soul after a minute of silence. Chanyeol didn’t answer; instead, he glanced indicatively at the wall on their left. Jongin followed the glance, and felt his blood run cold.

The wall and the doors were completely, top-to-bottom covered in framed newspaper excerpts. Some of them were all images of the same fire – the very same fire he had seen on the walls of the hotel, the one that seemed to smile at him, taunting, cruel. This time around, it had no text over it. The other frames were all headlines.

**RISK OF HOUSE FIRE RISES 50% THIS SUMMER**

**ARSONIST RUNS LOOSE? HAZARD FIRES SPREAD**

**TEN DEAD AND SEVERAL INJURED IN SERIAL ARSONS**

**WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO PARK CHANYEOL?**

They had stopped walking to read the headlines, and now Chanyeol’s grip on Jongin’s shoulders was so tight it hurt. The wandering soul looked disturbed, paler than ever. “We need to get out of here,” he hissed, shaking Jongin a little. “We need to get out of here,” he repeated, louder.

Jongin agreed. He wanted to say so, to get on with it, move away from the wall and down the hallway and out of the hospital, but he couldn’t. His legs seemed to be glued to the floor as his eyes locked with the photograph of the fire.

It was horrible. It was one horrible, truly gruesome photograph. Despite it being from a newspaper, Jongin could see each detail; the nuances of the fire that formed the smiling face, the trees feeding it from the sides, even the columns of smoke that rose from it and covered the sky. And the house. His eyes bulged. The house, the house with the slanted ceiling and low fence, the house that the fire was swallowing with apparent satisfaction.

It was the house Jongin had grown up in.

With a feverish glance at the side, Jongin noticed that the photographs weren’t, after all, of the same fire. Even if, in all of them, the smoke made it look like the flames were smiling, they were all different places. A tall building. A bus. An apartment complex. A school. A car.

His school. His car.

All scenes that he could recognize well from years and years of nightmares. All places that had never actually burned down, even if, in Jongin’s terrified mind, they _had_ , again and again and again.

“Jongin. We need. To get out. Of here,” Chanyeol snapped him out of it, shaking him violently, voice strained in desperation. Jongin’s knees felt like jelly. The air was suddenly cold, as if they were in a subterraneous cave. Or a catacomb. Or a tunnel.

“We do,” Jongin finally found his voice, all while trying to regulate his breathing. “Let’s go. Let’s get out.”

It was then that he noticed that the androgynous receptionist was long gone. The hallway was completely silent, and the air stood still, as if the walls were holding its breath. In the distance, Jongin heard a rumble of metallic voices, a sound that he had once mistaken for rusty waterpipes; _well, well, well_.

They strode in the direction they had come from, no longer bunched together, but holding each other’s hands firmly. Chanyeol’s undead hand was weird, as Jongin finally noticed; it was there, solid and palpable, but it felt like air under his fingers. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t warm – Jongin’s tactile sense said it wasn’t even there. It was uncomfortable, but that wasn’t the time to think about that. They had to find the way out.

As they reached the first curve, all lights went out.

A velvety, light cold breeze reached them, rising from the floor like mist. _Well, well, well_. The sudden darkness was enough for Chanyeol and Jongin to switch from hand-holding to full-fledged, panicked body-hugging. Then, the low whistle approaching from the distant depths of the dark hallway was enough for Chanyeol pretty much crush Jongin’s bones as Jongin’s arms enveloped a body that was, sensorially speaking, non-existent.

“Run, run, run,” Chanyeol mumbled like a mantra, and it worked on Jongin like a spell. They immediately turned around and sprinted in the opposite direction, the one they had been following previously, in hope that it would lead them somewhere not as menacing as the pitch black, gelid hallway.

They ran blindly along the hallway’s extension, curiously failing to collide with any walls, chased by the maddening sound of a hundred, a thousand of low whistles, blades of vicious wind. For a moment – for the longest, most terrifying moment – it almost seemed to Jongin that the sound was about to catch up with them, and he ran most desperately than ever, forcing his legs to keep dragging his body forward and away from the imminent terror that came after them.

It was then that they slammed into a door with full force and went through it with a sickening whirring noise, almost toppling over each other’s legs and falling to the floor.

As they stumbled in pain and confusion, the door closed behind them with great noise, a metallic thump that echoed way too loudly. Looking around in confusion, Jongin noticed that the ambient was no longer completely dark, nor was it as narrow and small as the hallway – hence the echo. No, the place was definitely not the hospital’s hallway, and Jongin knew that because he recognized the place: the storehouse where they had been hiding just hours before.

The whistle could no longer be heard. Taking that as a sign of safeness, Jongin turned around to check on Chanyeol, breathing in gasps as his lungs caught on with the physical extortion he had just suffered. Chanyeol was just behind him, apparently okay – of course, undead souls don’t need to breathe. – but slightly alarmed.

“What are we doing here?” he asked no one in particular, holding Jongin as the latter bended forward in an attempt to breathe better. Jongin’s throat burnt as he gasped, swallowing huge intakes of icy air. “Jongin, I think we’re in deep shit. Really, how did we end up here? We were at the hospital… and then the lights went off…”

“There you are,” a familiar voice cut through Chanyeol’s rambling. When Jongin looked up, still breathing a bit too hard, he found the hospital’s receptionist walking toward them, all but five meters away, smiling a playful smile. More than ever, Jongin was unable to tell whether the blithe figure was a man or a woman; the white uniform fell flat on the chest, but marked a curvy waist, and his/her hair was long, but just barely long enough to be tied. The keen eyes and heart-shaped lips didn’t give much away either, and the nametag on his/her chest said simply, in bold black letters: KIM HEECHUL.

The receptionist caught Jongin’s glance, and smiled. “Hi, I’m Kim Heechul. How may I help you?” Deciding that Heechul was most definitely a male name, Jongin decided to label the person in front of him as a man. “It suits me, right? The name.”

Jongin didn’t answer. Nor did Chanyeol, who stood behind Jongin as if seeking coverage, hands once again finding his shoulders.

“You asked for Park Chanyeol, back in the hospital,” Heechul went on, walking towards them slowly, and maybe… a bit tauntingly. “And you said you’re his brothers,” he raised his eyebrows, now standing close enough to be a menace. “Which is a rather obvious lie.”

Jongin’s mouth was dry. He scanned his brain for any passable excuses, but he knew that, even if he found something to say, it would be impossible for him to actually say anything. He was far too intimidated. Heechul’s smile morphed into a smirk.

“But I figured out you deserved to know about him,” he said, shrugging. “After all, both of you were kept in the dark this whole time, weren’t you? No more of that. Now if you do follow me,” the receptionist turned around, shooting them a glance over his shoulder. “You’ll know what really happened to Park Chanyeol.”

And he started walking away, towards the distant front door of the storehouse; the same Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had gone through for their argument in the rain. Jongin and Chanyeol exchanged a cryptic glance, and Jongin’s stomach churned with anxiety when he saw determination in the wandering soul’s eyes.

“Chanyeol sshi—”

“I’m going.”

“Chanyeol—”

“I need to know,” Chanyeol raised his voice slightly. His face was steely, contracted. “I’m dead already. There’s no way to turn back.”

“There _is_ ,” Jongin insisted. “Kyungsoo knows how…”

“TO HELL WITH KYUNGSOO!” Chanyeol yelled suddenly, startling Jongin. It was an angry yell, but also a hurt one, like the howl of a wounded wolf. Chanyeol’s big eyes swelled with tears all of sudden, and he bit his lip. “To hell with him,” he whimpered, rubbing an arm over his eyes so to wipe the tears. Jongin had never felt so sorry for someone before. “It hurts. I know I’m someone, but I don’t know who I am, and it hurts. I don’t need to be alive. I just need to know—I just need to know if my life was even worth living in the first place.”

His efforts to prevent the tears from falling were heartbreaking to watch. Jongin was still anxious, nauseated as the feeling of imminent disaster loomed over him, but he couldn’t help but to sympathize with Chanyeol. Because of that, even though his instincts were screaming at him not to do that – and his instincts sounded suspiciously like someone he knew – he gave Chanyeol’s undead shoulder an encouraging pat, and they started to follow Heechul from the distance.

Only that, Heechul was gone. He was gone as suddenly as he had appeared to them in the dead hospital hall, nowhere to be seen, nowhere to be heard. Despite that, both of them knew exactly where he was, and they headed to the door with blind determination. Jongin did his best to ignore the tug in his chest when he saw a familiar lump of old mattresses and dusty cushions, did his best to focus on the door they were rapidly approaching, on the explanations they had been expecting for some time now.

As expected, when they pushed the heavy metal doors open, Heechul was standing outside, the only one to be seen in the vast clearing between the road and the storehouse. However, there was something that made Jongin halt still, face losing color. Heechul was no longer dressed in a white uniform – he was dressed all in black, the darkest shade of black Jongin had ever seen – and his previously brown hair was, all of sudden, red like a ripe apple. Red like raging fire.

Heechul’s gleaming eyes spelled danger. The wind moaned, and thunder rumbled in the distance.

“Crazy weather, huh?” he said it like a joke, baring his teeth in a devilish smile. The contrast between his hair and the grey surroundings was violent. “It’s almost like it _knows_ there’s something that isn’t supposed to happen,” he glanced pointedly at Chanyeol, who recoiled, “going on here on Earth.”

He was, rather obviously, not the receptionist of any hospital, not even ones that bended reality to their inanimate whim. Jongin felt a chill run up his spine when a gust of wind swept past them, strong, chilly.

“What…” he doesn’t know where he gets the courage to speak up. “W—what are you?”

Just as soon as these words left Jongin’s mouth, and Heechul’s lips curled in a cruel grin, a wall of flames burst between them, tall and frightening.

Jongin shrieked, jumping back in a haste to get away from the fire. Chanyeol also jumped, but was considerably less startled. Heechul didn’t even move. The only thing he did was to turn his head to the left, raising an eyebrow in some sort of bitter amusement.

“Invaders,” he announced, and Jongin and Chanyeol followed his glance. There, ten meters away from them, a huge figure was landing from the sky – no, actually two normal sized figures previously holding onto each other – and quickly approached them, in violent steps that crushed the tall grass mercilessly. Jongin’s heart thumped hard.

It was Baekhyun.

It was Baekhyun who was coming. Baekhyun was practically running towards him, face stern. Baekhyun, Baekhyun was there, Baekhyun was running towards him and it was embarrassing how loud Jongin’s heart was beating and how he was just repeating Baekhyun’s name over and over again inside of his head. Baekhyun was no longer wearing beaten pajama pants: he had tight black leather pants on, as well as a dark grey wife-beater and a studded leather jacket, even metal rings and bracelets, just like Jongin had described to him. Exactly like Jongin had described to him. Before Jongin could stop himself, he was hastily covering the distance between them and latching himself onto Baekhyun’s shoulder, tears threatening to spill from his eyes, sobs threatening to rip through his throat.

“I’m here,” Baekhyun reassured in a soothing voice, hot to the touch as always. “I’m here. I’m back. Don’t worry.”

The heat emanating from the demon’s body was intense, a bit too intense for Jongin, so he had to let go after a few seconds. It was when he did so that he spotted Kyungsoo right behind him, looking far more wrecked and drained than before, and this time it was no mistake – two enormous, pure white wings sprouted from the back of Kyungsoo’s back. A good ten steps behind Jongin, Chanyeol stood in a defensive manner, eyeing the angel with hurt and suspicion.

“Put this out, will you, little imp? You’re ruining the mood,” Heechul spoke up suddenly, face sour, pointing at the fire. It took Jongin a few seconds to understand he was talking to Baekhyun. Of course. Who else? In no more than three seconds, the flames were gone. “Thank you. What a gentleman you are.”

“Technically speaking, you can’t really hurt any of them,” Baekhyun said to Heechul, but his tone was hesitant, as if he was trying to reassure himself instead of warning Heechul about it. Heechul seemed to think the same. He snickered.

“Technically speaking, I can do whatever the hell I want. But I’m not trying to hurt them,” he raised his hands to show innocence. “I was just about to introduce myself to your little Kim Jongin. Would you like to do it yourself, instead?”

Jongin glanced at Baekhyun, then at Heechul, then back at Baekhyun, then forth at Heechul. They knew each other, then? Baekhyun turned to him with a weak, semi-apologetic smile.

“Jongin,” he said, reaching for Jongin’s hand. “Meet my boss. This is the Devil,” he turned to Heechul. “Boss, this is Kim Jongin, my human.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you at last,” Heechul mock-bowed, and Jongin gaped.

What the fuck.

“This is my lucky day, it seems. Got all four of you at once,” Heechul rubs his hands together contently. Jongin is still gaping, whispering to himself, _what_ , _what_ , _what_. “Now, sit back, will you? I was about to tell little Chanyeol’s story—”

“You can’t do that!” Jongin jumped when he heard Kyungsoo cry out, and lightning cracked menacingly near. When he turned around, he found Kyungsoo in front of Chanyeol, wings spread like a shield. Heechul narrowed his eyes at him, and the angel’s resolve faltered visibly. “You… can’t do that. It will kill him.”

“Oh, _that’s_ what will kill him, not the fact that he’s already dead,” Heechul deadpanned sarcastically.

“He’s not dead. He’s wandering.” Kyungsoo took a deep breath, obviously intimidated, but determined not to be shaken. “Besides, it’s not his time to die. He has to be restored. Letting him die would hinder the flow of the karmic map.”

Heechul rolled his eyes, impatient. “And what do you know about the karmic map, you misguided nightingale? Are you not aware that, thanks to your mistake,” the accusation seemed to hit Kyungsoo like a blade through his chest, “his soul is now mine to take?”

“I—I don’t know much about karma,” Kyungsoo confessed, face stiff, eyes filled with stubbornness. “But my father told me about it. He said killing Chanyeol would be against the All-Rules. So,” the feathers of his wings ruffled softly, “you can’t tell him anything.”

Heechul huffed, putting his hands on his hips. He was clearly losing his temper. Jongin was scared shitless by the prospect of the Devil losing its temper right there, all but ten steps away from him.

“Too bad for you your father isn’t here right now, right?” Heechul threw his hands upwards so to signalize the empty field. “And, as far as I know, he doesn’t plan to show up anytime soon, so why don’t you act like a good little birdie and—”

“Not so fast, Heechul,” a voice rumbled like thunder out of nowhere.

The ground started shaking. It was, at first, a barely noticeable tremor, but it soon evolved into something strong enough to send Jongin clinging onto Baekhyun and Chanyeol clinging onto Jongin and Kyungsoo clinging onto Chanyeol. The storehouse’s structure whined, and some debris fell heavily on the grass, sending fistfuls of dust flying in the strong wind. Lightning cracked, thunder roared, leaves flew and whistled.

And then, lightning zapped right in front of them. A dull pain penetrated Jongin’s eyeballs as he looked away hastily, burying his face in the hot comfort of Baekhyun’s shoulder, letting the demon press him closer protectively. At that moment, instead of a dangerous fire demon – to Jongin, at least, Baekhyun felt like a guardian angel.

The earthquake ceased. The wind eased, and the thunderstorm grew distant once again. More important of all; in front of them, now stood a tall, muscular man, which Jongin recognized almost immediately with a cold pang of panic in his stomach. He recognized the thick eyebrows and the austere expression because he had seen that man just some hours ago. It was the man in the large photograph at the hotel.

“Father,” Kyungsoo whispered, but he didn’t sound exactly relieved.

What the fucking fuck. God was standing right there. God and the Devil were standing side by side right in front of Jongin. If he survived to see the end of that day, he’d have a heck of a story to tell his grandchildren.


	5. the trial. + masterpiece boy. + what really happened to park chanyeol?

a. the trial.

 

“Kyungsoo,” the man spoke in a deep, firm voice that was equal parts reassuring and intimidating. “Coil your wings. You’ll hurt yourself if you keep them spread for this long.”

Kyungsoo complied immediately, looking vastly smaller and more exhausted without the white wings on his back. Now that Jongin was taking a good look at him, he looked like a corpse: pale, shriveled, huge black marks under his eyes. Jongin was sure angels were not supposed to look this unhappy. Well, then again, Kyungsoo had gone through a lot of stress in a small frame of time…

“Look, guys. It’s Choi Siwon. CEO of whatever Co. & Inc.,” Heechul smiled sweetly to God – Siwon? – but his eyes were glinting with silent wrath. “What a pleasure to have you here, lame ass incarnation. I was just about to start story time. Wanna join?”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you start anything, Heechul,” Siwon was apparently not fond of jokes. Or was in a bad mood. “What you’re about to do is a great violation against the karmic flow.”

“Oh? Excuse me?” Heechul once again put his hands on his hips, rather outraged. “Last time I checked, I wasn’t a deranged angel getting my human killed—”

“He’s not dead—”

“Shut up!” Heechul yelled, hair bristling as if pulled by static, but Siwon was apparently not impressed. He was, however, holding himself in a clearly defensive pose. Jongin started shaking with fear. “This human is all but dangling from the corner of the death abyss! He’s ham already, and that’s thank to _your_ angel!”

Kyungsoo had coiled himself into a ball by then, hands never letting go from Chanyeol. He was shaking, much more than Jongin. Chanyeol, whose previous anger and distaste toward the angel had clearly dissipated, enveloped him in an awkwardly oversized hug. 

“I think,” Siwon said, dusting imaginary dirt off his expensive-looking suit. “We ought to take this to court.”

Heechul raised his brows in surprise, as if he had not been expecting Siwon to suggest such thing. It did, indeed, sound like a strange request. At least to Jongin. Chanyeol also seemed confused, but Baekhyun only looked alarmed.

“Sure. As you wish,” Heechul conceded with a shrug, turning around to walk away from Siwon. He stopped as soon as he reached a safe distance. “However, I must warn you,” he turned around again, swaying playfully on his feet. “I’m not here to defend anyone.”

Siwon’s eyes shot to Baekhyun immediately. The demon tensed, fingers pressing hard against Jongin’s flesh. 

“Neither am I,” God said.

Those were pretty bad news. Actually, those were the worst possible news. And Heechul was smiling, cruel, manic. “Let’s play the blame game then.”

Soon enough, a warm wind started to emanate from the grass – and then, two towers of violet fire exploded in front of them.

It was, to put it plainly, a really fucking terrifying sight. Horns had sprouted from Heechul’s vivid red hair, and those horns were twice as long, thrice as sharp as Baekhyun’s. The violet fire raged and cracked like breaking bones, and Jongin just couldn’t stop seeing faces in it, laughing faces, and faces contorted in pain. God and The Devil were reciting a prayer in an ancient language, which Jongin had zero familiarity with, and their eyes were closed. Heechul opened his eyes first, and spoke, his voice echoing to infinity.

“Hell against The Heavens,” he announced, suddenly taller than any mountain. “Hell’s accusation. I accuse the angel Kyungsoo of negligence and karmic disobedience,” Jongin heard a scream. Kyungsoo was being torn off from Chanyeol’s embrace by an invisible force, an invisible force that sent him flying straight into one of the columns of fire. At that sight, Jongin squeezed Baekhyun tighter against himself, overwhelmed by a fiery fear that penetrated his bones like a billion needles

“The Heavens’ accusation,” Siwon spoke, his voice also multiplied. Jongin was shaking, “I accuse the demon Baekhyun,” _no_ , “of high treason.”

That couldn’t be happening.

Jongin tried to hold onto Baekhyun, tried not to let him go, but it was futile. The demon seemed to have accepted his destiny, and made an effort to make Jongin let him go as the invisible force pulled him away with ungodly strength.

“It’s too late, Jongin,” he said before shaking Jongin’s iron grip off his wrist. He looked miserable, like burnt-out charcoal. “It’s too late.”

Miserable and defeated, Jongin let go, and the demon was flinged into the other column of fire.

The fire was extinguished immediately. In the space between God and the Devil, the ground cracked, and soon a huge earthquake started.

It was intense – much more intense than the previous one. Jongin and Chanyeol instinctively reached for each other, panicked, perplexed, as the crack on the land grew wider and a huge, dark rock emerged from it with a great rumble. It was only when the rock stopped moving, apparently settled in place, and the crack closed itself suddenly like a door, that Jongin noticed the rock was actually a polished sculpture. A table. And, atop this table, sat a man in a long tunic, holding a small hammer.

The man was small, face smooth and symmetric, and had a feminine charm to him. His facial expression, however, was the dictionary definition of boredom. When he spoke, his voice was apathetic. “You’re at it again.”

“Good evening, your honor,” Heechul greeted with some mockery in his voice. “It’s nice to meet you in this incarnation at last.”

“You’ve met me already. I’m Lee Sungmin from this guy’s IT team,” the man – the judge – Sungmin – signalized Siwon with his head. “Let’s get on with this. So, the two of you are accusing different people of different crimes that revolve around the same situation,” the judge leaned over the table to scribble something on a book Jongin could only partially see. The pen he used was a common ball pen, which popped out in the bizarre scenery like headlights. “Tricky. What do you seek with this trial?”

“The right to punish the right culprit,” Siwon said, and a chill went up Jongin’s spine. Heechul seemed satisfied with that.

Sungmin scribbled some more. “May the defendants be brought forth.”

The air popped with another round of quick lightning; it summoned a tall wooden pole in front of table. Chained with their backs against the pole were Baekhyun and Kyungsoo, looking grieved and uncomfortable.

“Kyungsoo…” Jongin heard Chanyeol whimper, heartbroken. The angel’s head pended in defeat.

“The wandering soul’s status will be held unchanging until the end of the trial,” Sungmin announced, earning a groan from both parties. He was unfazed. “The outcome of the trial will decide whether it will be restored or descend into hell. The defendants are only allowed to speak when requested by the forces in battle.” Jongin thought that the judge would give Baekhyun and Kyungsoo a chance to either plead innocence or confess, but he didn’t. “Let’s start, then. Hell, elaborate your charges.”

“Sure thing, you honor,” Heechul skipped his way towards the pole. Everything looked simultaneously normal-sized and seven-feet-tall, and the optic illusion plus the anxiety were making Jongin horribly queasy.

“I accuse the guardian angel Kyungsoo of negligence,” Heechul said, walking around the pole so to face Kyungsoo. The angel had his head low, but Heechul grabbed his chin and forced him to look up, into the Devil’s eyes. “After all, guardian angels have one job. One single job: to protect their human,” he let go of Kyungsoo’s chin, making his head fall heavily. Kyungsoo apparently lacked energy to keep his gaze up. “And he failed horribly at that. A serious violation of the rules of Destiny. Not really unseen before, but serious nonetheless.”

Siwon was shifting on his feet, obviously eager to have his turn. Jongin couldn’t bear watching it, but couldn’t tear his eyes off the scene.

“But that’s not all,” Heechul remarked, gleaming with sadistic pleasure. “This little angel here,” he pointed at Kyungsoo. “Did some _truly_ demonic things. Oh, he did,” Kyungsoo flinched at the accusation, shutting his eyes closed. “Manipulating humans,” blow one. “Shifting away from responsibility,” blow two. “Breaking several celestial laws, so many that it’d be enough to send him off the map alone,” blow three. “And, above them all,” Heechul raised a finger, apparently ready to finish his accusations. “Doing all of this under an egoistic motivation: saving himself.”

Jongin felt Chanyeol’s barely corporeal fingers dig into his shoulder. He felt sick. If he had anything in his stomach, he’d have thrown up by then. Meanwhile, Sungmin was merely nodding, scribbling on his book, completely detached from the tragedy unfolding in front of him. He looked up, glance on Siwon. “The Heavens may go on by announcing their charges.”

God got on his feet, swinging his arms contently while walking in a straight line toward Baekhyun. “I shan’t accuse you directly, Baekhyun. I will interrogate you. You’ll have a chance to make yourself seem innocent. How’s that?”

“Very merciful,” Baekhyun said weakly, voice raspy and exhausted, but lips curled in his usual insolent smile. Jongin wanted to cry. 

“Indeed. So I shall start,” Siwon paced back and forth in front of Baekhyun, like a predator carefully observing his prey. “Announce who you are for the records to be kept.”

Baekhyun didn’t answer immediately; almost as if he was pondering whether the question was a trap. After a fleeting moment of silence, however, he complied. “I’m called Baekhyun and I’m a fire demon,” he said. “I’m a specialist in house fires and electric accidents.”

Siwon nodded, deeming the answer satisfying. His pace slowed down, and his eyes glinted, as if he was choosing his words very, very carefully. “So, fire demon,” he started, enouncing the title a bit mockingly. “Tell me: who is Kim Jongin?”

Jongin went pale immediately.

Baekhyun seemed to be in a similar state of shock, even if the color of his complexion didn’t change. He was facing God with wide, matte eyes, and his jaw hung slack. The demon, once so insolent and full of bravado, was at a complete, panicked loss of words. And it had to do with Jongin. Why? _Why?_

“Answer me, Baekhyun,” Siwon stepped closer, as menacing in his fancy suit as Heechul was with his red hair and horns. “Who is Kim Jongin?”

Baekhyun closed his mouth, pressed his lips together. Took a sharp intake of breath. 

Then spoke. “Kim Jongin is the human I’m assigned to.”

Siwon raised an eyebrow. “Which means…?” He urged on.

“Which means,” Baekhyun let himself be lead, eyes planted on the floor. “That it’s my mission to kill him.”

It was as if someone had pulled the world from under Jongin’s feet.

_What._

“Correct,” Siwon nodded, apparently content. “But that’s not all about him, is it?”

What else could there possibly be? What else could possibly be bigger than that revelation? Baekhyun was supposed to kill him. Holy hell, _Baekhyun was supposed to kill him_.

Baekhyun gulped, closing his eyes. He was obviously trying to avoid Jongin’s eyes, trying to forget Jongin’s presence. “No, it isn’t,” he said.

“What else is there about him, Baekhyun?” Siwon pushed him forward, hungry for the answer that seemed to be the key to his charges against the demon. 

Baekhyun sighed in defeat. He shot a quick, pained look toward Jongin – one that said, _I’m sorry_. Jongin couldn’t answer. Jongin couldn’t move, nor he could think properly, and did nothing but gape as Baekhyun looked away to face Siwon.

“Kim Jongin,” he said, voice weak and trembling, “is the human known as the Masterpiece Boy.”

 

b. masterpiece boy.

 

Fucking sacred mother of all sinners _what_.

Chanyeol gasped. Kyungsoo gasped. Sungmin raised his brows. Jongin ceased to breath altogether, possibly for all eternity.

Heechul merely rolled his eyes, as if to say, _oh, really_.

How could that possibly be true?

And yet, Siwon was grinning. He had his key in hands. “Precisely,” he said. “That’s precisely what he is.” To Jongin’s mortification, Siwon turned around to face him full-on, gaze intense and accusatory. “Kim Jongin. A human who was supposed to have died several years ago.” Reality simply would not stop slapping Jongin on the face, it seemed. “So, it looks like Kyungsoo isn’t the only one who failed his mission here.”

“Uh, objection. Not the point of this trial,” Heechul interfered half-assedly, impatient. “I’d be happy to have another trial entirely dedicated to the scheme. Right now, though, you charged this imp,” Heechul signalized Baekhyun with a nod of his head, “with high treason. Explain yourself. I’m curious.”

“Sustained,” Sungmin said absent-mindedly, scribbling something. Siwon relented.

“Very well. I shall explain myself,” God said, going back to pacing back and forth in front of the stake. “As most non-humans know, the Masterpiece Boy scheme is a famous case of incompetence. Supposedly,” he adds, grinning slyly. “What most people know is that it’s all about a demon – our Baekhyun here – who repeatedly failed to kill his assigned human over the years. And every time he was asked about it, he would say the same thing,” Siwon tilted his head to the side. “ _I’m working on it. Death is a form of art, you know_.” He went back to his normal posture. “Hence the nickname.”

Jongin felt bile rise up to his mouth. Masterpiece Boy. The most majestic murder of all. That was supposed to be him.

“The reason why I’m charging Baekhyun with high treason is obvious,” to Siwon, at least, it seemed to be. “It’s because Baekhyun’s failure in killing Kim Jongin did not derive from something as simple as incompetence, or even excessive perfectionism.” Siwon’s eyes glinted. “It derived from criminal intent.” 

Sungmin raised his brows once again, and this time Heechul mimicked the gesture. Siwon shook his head at the entities’ disbelief, and turned to Baekhyun. “Am I lying?” he asked the demon, leaning forward. “What do you say, Baekhyun? Were you delaying Kim Jongin’s death on purpose?”

Baekhyun raised his eyes to face him. “Yes, I was.”

“But tell me. Tell us,” God signalized the other living beings in the clearing. “Why?”

For a moment, it seemed like Baekhyun would drop his gaze again. However, he did not. Firm and unwavering, he gave his answer. 

“Because I fell in love with him.”

The cherry on the top of a huge, monstrous ice cream cake of shock.

“No further questions,” Siwon said, and Heechul’s eyes shone with ire. The Devil was smiling, but it wasn’t a good smile. It was a furious, venomous, you-won’t-even-see-what-hit-you-when-I-get-my-hands-on-you smile. Jongin started to cry, muffling his sobs on his hand as he tried to watch the trial through a mist of tears. 

Heechul got up. “As happy as I am for finally having this traitor unmasked before me,” he grabbed a handful of Baekhyun’s hair and pulled, making the demon scream in pain. “I would just like to remind you that the matter in hands is not the Masterpiece Boy scheme, but the premature death of Park Chanyeol.”

“Well, Park Chanyeol’s death is directly related to the Masterpiece Boy scheme,” Siwon pointed out, unfazed. “If anything, I dare to say his death can be entirely blamed on it.” But Heechul was having none of it.

“I do know his death is related to the scheme, mind you, but that’s where you make your mistake,” Heechul retorted, entirely confident. “But well, before I start explaining why you’re wrong,” Heechul turned to look at Jongin and Chanyeol – and only then did Jongin notice that Chanyeol had been patting his back in an attempt to comfort him. “I think our favorite wandering soul deserves to know his own history.”

A thunderbolt hit Jongin and Chanyeol square. Jongin screamed, expecting his body to be carbonized like toasted bread, but he barely even felt any pain. What did happen, however, was that Chanyeol was suddenly no longer sitting beside him, one long arm around his shoulders; the wandering soul was now sitting at the very top of the vertiginously tall pole Baekhyun and Kyungsoo were chained to. 

“Park Chanyeol,” the name rolled from The Devil’s tongue. Chanyeol was obviously scared. “What do you know about yourself?”

It took Chanyeol a while to realize that was a legitimate question. He squirmed a bit, flashing a terrified glance down and promptly looking back up. “My name is Park Chanyeol, and I was an arsonist.”

Heechul nodded. “Correct,” Sungmin scribbled furiously. “What else?”

“I… um, I think I was part of a gang? I don’t really remember this,” he was quick to add. “I just supposed. And. And, that’s all, I think.”

Heechul nodded. “You worked for loan sharks. Burned the debtors’ houses down,” it was said casually, but the impact on Chanyeol was great. At first, his expression was blank; as soon as it sunk, however, his whole face contorted. First in confusion, then in disgust. “Not that you liked your job, but it was the only way to pay your own debt. Besides, you’ve always had a secret affinity for fire.”

Chanyeol looked like he was about to throw up. Jongin momentarily wondered if ghosts could throw up. He then felt like a colossal idiot for thinking about that right in the middle of such a serious situation. Chanyeol, long limbs and dumb smile Chanyeol, killed people for a living. He himself didn’t seem to believe it.

“Here’s what the humans know about your death,” said Heechul. “You got caught in one of your own fires. Trapped in the house you were supposed to burn down. Pretty tragic,” he added the last part like a joke. 

“And here’s what the heavens think they know about your death: your fire was sabotaged by a rogue fire demon.”

Jongin held his breath. Chanyeol widened his eyes. Baekhyun shook his head – whether it was in denial or regret, no one could tell.

“That’s not true.”

To everyone’s surprise, it was Kyungsoo who said that, voice feeble and emotionless. Kyungsoo himself looked as feeble and emotionless as his voice; his eyes were glassy and his expression blank, neutral. His limbs were loose. He looked terrible.

Heechul smiled. “It isn’t, indeed. Good to know that you’re ready to admit it,” he said, and the angel said nothing in response. “According to the official records, Baekhyun killed you, Chanyeol,” Chanyeol jumped, not expecting to be addressed again, “in Kim Jongin’s place. Destiny was leading Kim Jongin straight to the street where the house was located. Lost while driving, as usual. He would drive past the house right as it went, BOOM!” Sudden flames burst from the floor, licking the wooden pole with a sickening noise. They lasted no longer than a second, but it was enough for Jongin to actually throw up from fear. Heechul’s grin was vicious.

“However, the house exploded several minutes before it was supposed to. Everyone blamed it on the traitor, of course,” Baekhyun wasn’t listening. Jongin had the impression that the demon had been looking at him, but, when he turned around to look, still coughing and sputtering, Baekhyun’s eyes were focused on the floor. “No one thought of blaming it on your own guardian angel.”

Jongin felt a new surge of bile rise to his throat as Chanyeol’s expression turned blank. Just as blank as Kyungsoo’s. Kyungsoo closed his eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek.

“Are you ready to hear the truth?”

 

c. what really happened to park chanyeol?

 

Chanyeol didn’t look ready. Jongin was most definitely not ready. However, that was not about him: that was about Chanyeol. And he nodded, so Heechul would definitely go on.

Heechul smiled. “How did you meet your angel, Chanyeol?”

Chanyeol frowned. “He… I…” he shut his eyes closed, forcing his memory to cooperate. “I… I remember being on the top of a building… but I don’t remember how I got there…” He shook his head, giving up. “But he was there. That’s how we met.”

Heechul nodded, turning to Kyungsoo with a malicious smile. “How do you remember it, angel?”

“I chased after his soul as it started to descend,” Kyungsoo answered immediately. He didn’t look like himself anymore. All hesitation and fear were gone, leaving only exhaustion. He had given up. “It was still burning. I took it to a safe place, and waited until it regained conscience.”

“That means you imposed the wandering status on a dead man’s soul,” said The Devil.

“That’s right,” the angel answered.

Heechul nodded, increasingly pleased with Kyungsoo’s will to cooperate. “Souls descend into hell quite quick, don’t they? Barely a blink of eyes, ” he asked, feigning innocence. “You must’ve flown pretty fast to catch him before it was too late. Am I right?”

“I was close-by,” Kyungsoo answered promptly. 

Jongin wished Kyungsoo wouldn’t answer Heechul’s questions so fast. It would make it easier for The Devil to catch him in the trap he had doubtlessly set up.

“You were close-by?” Heechul frowned, still feigning innocence. “Wait a second then,” he turned to Sungmin. “If he was close-by when his protégé got caught in a deadly arson,” and turned back to Kyungsoo, “why didn’t he, as a guardian angel, immediately rescue Park Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo closed his eyes in pain, and regret. Two teardrops fell from his eyelashes. He was biting his lip, hard, as to stop any more tears to come. “Why, angel? Answer me.”

Kyungsoo swallowed, opening his eyes. His face slowly morphed into the previous expression of neutrality, but his voice was shaking when he spoke up.

“Because it was me who caused the premature explosion,” he said.

Heechul’s grin stretched to infinity. Siwon frowned in what could have been disgust or condescendence, lowering his head onto his hands. 

At the top of the pole, Chanyeol sat in shock. His gaze was empty, unfocused, and his posture was slack. A glimmer in his eyelids, and then tears were falling, silently, profusely.

And even Baekhyun, who Jongin had supposed knew everything, seemed surprised. Not shocked, though; only surprised, and alarmed.

“Let me just confirm this,” Heechul said, a hint of laughter in his voice. “Are you saying that you killed your own protégé? _On purpose_?”

“Yes,” Kyungsoo’s voice quivered.

The Devil raised his brows. “What a shock it must be for people who didn’t know that, huh?” he glanced pointedly at Baekhyun, then at Chanyeol, who was still crying but unmoving. “Very well, Kyungsoo. Now explain why you did that.”

“I wanted to force Chanyeol into reincarnation,” Kyungsoo said, no longer able to stop the tears, even if his face was still emotionless. “Wipe his factors clean. I thought I could do this if I kept him clueless while wandering. If he never remembered anything, I could lead him into reincarnating.”

Comprehension started to dawn upon Baekhyun, as well as an apparent sense of dread. Jongin wished it all would stop already.

“It was a naïve plan,” Kyungsoo admitted, full of grief. “He was too close to death the whole time. I panicked, and started seeking a way to restore him.”

“And what did you do about the fire?” asked Heechul.

“I blamed it on Baekhyun,” Kyungsoo answered, and Baekhyun recoiled. “I bribed him by saying—”

“That’s not true,” Baekhyun interrupted.

“Shush, you vermin. You’re only allowed to speak if I request you to.” Heechul eyed him with fury, and Baekhyun shut up. “Continue, Kyungsoo.”

“I bribed Baekhyun by saying that no one would believe that he was innocent. The circumstances were too suspicious,” Kyungsoo carried on. “He promised to help me with Chanyeol if I promised not to accuse him—”

“That’s NOT true!” Baekhyun shouted, squirming against the chains.

“SHUT IT,” Heechul roared at him, but, surprisingly, Sungmin held up a hand to signalize for Heechul to wait.

“What is not true, demon?” Sungmin asked, apparently curious.

“Kyungsoo didn’t bribe me,” Baekhyun said firmly. “I took the blame upon myself. I knew that—”

“Baekhyun, don’t,” Kyungsoo interrupted. “I forced you to—”

“—you didn’t force me _anything_ —”

“—I left you with no choice—”

“SILENCE!” 

At the slam of the hammer, lightning fell all around them, and the sound of thunder was deafening. Jongin covered his ears and screamed.

Silence was made. Sungmin put the hammer down, sighing. “Demon Baekhyun,” he said. “Explain why you took the blame for the angel’s act of disobedience upon yourself.”

Baekhyun hesitated for a moment, but, soon enough, he spoke. “Because I felt compassion for him,” Baekhyun explained. “He had taken an extreme measure to save his protégé. We were both doomed, but I have a ledger far dirtier than his, so I figured that it wouldn’t make a difference for me to take the blame.”

Heechul huffed. “ _Save_ his protégé? By letting him burn to death?” 

“I’m forced to agree with Heechul on this,” said Siwon, frowning, arms crossed. “Even if Chanyeol was restored, his body is seriously damaged. He might never recover.”

Baekhyun pressed his lips in a tight line. “I believe in Kyungsoo,” he said, voice firm. “He was just trying to spare Chanyeol from the pain. His life was pretty horrible, from what I’ve heard, and being a murderer is no bed of roses,” he shrugged. “For a human, at least. Killing their own kin eats them from inside.”

The three mythical entities eyed him with curiosity. It seemed like Baekhyun had shown them a new point of view. Kyungsoo had his eyes closed, expression contracted in pain as tears fell from his eyes. But, most of all, Siwon looked extremely pleased by that upturn.

“It seems like Kyungsoo’s motivations weren’t all that egoistic,” Siwon said to Heechul, smiling.

“You can’t really be willing to save an angel that killed its own human,” Heechul threw his hands in the hair, frustrated. “Aren’t you people from heaven supposed to protect life? Isn’t that kind of what you do?”

“Heechul is right,” Sungmin pointed at Heechul with his pen, and The Devil put his hands on his hips as to say, _see?_. Sungmin put the pen down and rubbed his temples. “This is a complicated situation. I’ll be honest with you and say I don’t know what to do. From the violations alone, these two,” he gestured towards Baekhyun and Kyungsoo. “Should be off the map in no time, but I’m convinced that they had valid goals.”

“Oh please,” Heechul rolled his eyes.

“What shall be done, then?” Siwon frowned, tapping a finger on his chin. “They ought not to walk away without punishment. Mistakes have been made. There’s a price to be paid.”

And that’s when it happened.

A surge of maniac energy took over Jongin’s body. There was a thing he needed to do. There was a thing no one but him could do. He got on his feet, wiping the snot running down his nose with his sleeve.

“I know what to do!” He shouted, but it was barely heard over the wind and distant wind. Taking a humongously deep breath, he tried again. “I KNOW WHAT TO DO!!”

It sounded loud enough to shatter mountains. All head turned towards him; Sungmin looked at him with some surprise, as if he had forgotten the human had been there the whole time. God and The Devil seemed curious. Baekhyun, Kyungsoo and Chanyeol seemed terrified. But nothing could make Jongin’s resolve falter, at least in that moment. Deep down, he was scared, but he knew that he had to do what he had to do.

Because there was a price to be paid, and there was no one who could pay but him.

“I… I think Baekhyun sshi and Kyungsoo sshi should be forgiven!” He wished he had at least thought some cool lines out. Well, it was too late. “Or—or at least not be destroyed! You know, have their souls crushed! I think… they shouldn’t be eliminated!”

“We understand what you mean,” Sungmin kindly reassured him, and Jongin flushed from the embarrassment. “But they can’t leave scot-free, you know. They’ve committed serious crimes.”

“I know,” Jongin nodded. “But—but I have a suggestion!”

And he breathed in deep, hands sweating, and let it out:

“In exchange for your pardon,” he said. “I’m offering my soul for you to take right now!”


	6. crime and punishment.

It caught the creatures completely by surprise. Some of them gasped. Out of them, Chanyeol gasped the loudest.

But it was Baekhyun who reacted the fastest.

“Jongin, don’t,” Baekhyun said, almost begging. 

“I have to,” Jongin justified, swallowing his own fear of death hastily. “All of this happened because of me. Because I’m alive. I can’t just sit and watch while—”

“For fuck’s sake, Jongin, _don’t_ ,” Baekhyun interrupted him, now definitely begging. “Don’t do this to me, Jongin, _please_ —”

Heechul shut Baekhyun up by smacking him on the face, hard. The demon’s skull hit the wood with a sickening crack.

“Interesting,” The Devil turned around to face Jongin, eyeing the human with curiosity. “It’s an interesting offer.”

Sungmin looked over to Siwon questioningly. “What do you think?” he asked.

Siwon tilted his head to the side. “Well, he has a point… Chanyeol’s death is directly related to his own survival,” and yet, he still didn’t look so sure. “But look, Jongin, it’s not your fault that you’re alive. It’s Baekhyun’s fault. And he _did_ commit high treason, after all.”

Jongin nodded. “If I hand my soul over right now,” he said, “would you be willing to forgive Baekhyun’s crime?”

Siwon sighed, as if he had expecting it. He shot a glance at Baekhyun, then another glance at Jongin. “Well,” God sighed once again. “It’s not up to me. Your soul wouldn’t belong to me, anyway.”

He then looked over at Heechul, who had a satisfied smile on his lips. Jongin shivered at the implications of that. What a shitty, shitty day to exist.

“Are you sure, Jonginnie?” Heechul taunted, walking over to where Jongin was standing, small and scared and with vomit on his shoes. “Death hurts, you know. And hell isn’t much fun either. It’s stuffy, full of noisy neighbors, and you’re forced to murder people in a daily basis. Someone with such brightly positive factors like you,” he was suddenly close enough to touch Jongin’s cheek, and he did so, and his touch was _scalding_. “Certainly doesn’t like killing people. Do you like it?”

“I…” Jongin was scared. God, Jongin was scared shitless. “I don’t,” he found it in himself to answer. “But I don’t want Baekhyun sshi to… unexist or something. If I’m still able to meet him in hell,” even though it wasn’t the time to be bashful, he blushed at his own boldness. “Then I’ll go with you. Willingly.”

Heechul nodded, looking ultimately victorious. From the corner of his eye, Jongin could see that Siwon was also smiling, as if approving his courageous act. Sungmin was scribbling again.

“So, let’s finish this. This trial has dragged for way too long,” the judge said, massaging his temples. “Hell, what do you say? Do you drop your charges?”

Heechul nodded. “I allow Baekhyun, as my subordinate, and Kyungsoo, as my defendant, to walk free,” the chains that confined Baekhyun and Kyungsoo to the pole dissolved, and the two of them fell to the floor heavily, painfully. “Under the condition of—”

“Wait a minute,” Siwon suddenly interrupted, to Heechul’s dismay. “Wait a minute, wait.”

Heechul rolled his eyes and huffed. Sungmin, too, seemed impatient. “What is it?” he asked dryly.

“Kim Jongin,” the way God roared his name made Jongin give a step back. “Why are you offering your soul to be taken?”

Jongin blinked. He thought he had answered that one already. “Because… because I don’t want Baekhyun sshi and Kyungsoo sshi to unexist,” he said, intimidated.

“And why is it? Why do you want them not to be off the map?” Siwon urged on, taking huge strides in his direction. Jongin pondered running away.

“B-because I don’t… um… I think Kyungsoo sshi didn’t mean any harm,” he answered. “And because I want Baekhyun sshi to be well. I was happy about being protected by him, so I want to go in his place.”

At this point, it seemed like Kyungsoo was holding Baekhyun’s arms back, as if to stop him from running towards Jongin. The demon, however, wasn’t moving; he was only watching the exchange, expression undecipherable. 

“So you know that Baekhyun did something wrong,” Siwon was gleaming. “But wants to receive punishment in his place?”

Unsure what he could possibly be trying to milk out from him, Jongin was sincere and nodded.

Siwon simply turned around to face Sungmin and announced, “Selfless Suicide.”

It was as if he had slapped Heechul on the face. The Devil blinked, and his expression turned sour. “No. No, no, no, nope, no can do. He told me he wants to go with _me_ —”

“Who has ever wanted to go with you?!”

“—and _I_ pardoned them, so his soul is mine!” Heechul was having none of that.

Sungmin, on the other hand, was suddenly pensive. Slowly, very slowly, he turned around to face Heechul. “He’s right.”

“No, don’t even start,” Heechul was unable to accept it.

“You can withdraw your pardon, if you’d like, but there’s no help to it,” Sungmin pointed out. “It is what it is. By acknowledging their mistakes and still offering to receive punishment in their place, Kim Jongin is doubtlessly committing Selfless Suicide.”

“Which is a purifying action,” Siwon adds, excessively pleased. Heechul was fuming. “You can’t really walk into your realms with a positive soul with you, by law, you know.”

Jongin stood unsure of what to do. His glance darted back and forth between Heechul and Siwon, looking for a clue of what to do, starting to suspect that the best to do at a time like that was nothing.

“Well, fine. Pardon withdrawn,” Heechul rolled his eyes, waving a hand in defeat. “Which means shit because you’ll pardon them anyway.”

Siwon only smiled. “I allow Kyungsoo, as my subordinate, and Baekhyun, as my defendant, to walk free,” he said. “Under the condition of maintaining the soul of Kim Jongin under my possession.”

Sungmin nodded, back to scribbling, and Siwon walked towards Jongin to put a hand on his shoulder. Jongin thought he should probably feel relieved, but he felt nothing but anxious. So he was going to heaven? … slightly better than going to hell, even if it meant he was still going to die before even getting his first job. What a waste of all those years in university… 

“Consider it done. Hell has the right to infringe punishment, as long as it doesn’t violate The Heavens’ sentence and condition,” Sungmin was apparently relieved to see the end of that trial. Heechul, on the other hand, looked positively, reasonably bummed.

However, The Devil’s expression was quick to brighten once again, and for no apparent reason. His previous frown dissolved into a brilliant, wicked grin. Jongin knew better than to expect anything minimally good from that change, and braced himself for what was to come.

“As a punishment for crimes already discussed,” Heechul said grandly, pointing at Baekhyun and Kyungsoo’s fallen form on the ground. “I condemn Baekhyun, as my subordinate, and Kyungsoo, my defendant, to a lifetime in a world with no safety, no certainty, and endless possibilities of looming menaces,” he bared his teeth. “The human world. I demote both of you, with the power conceded to me, to the status of human beings.”

Jongin blinked, frowned. Glanced at them, who were just as confused.

What was that plot twist?!

“You’re making them human?” Chanyeol asked, and that was when everyone noticed he was still sitting at the top of the stake. Feeling sorry for him, Siwon slowly floated him back to the floor, which resulted in a few seconds of Chanyeol looking like a drunk flying octopus. 

“I am,” Heechul nodded confidently, and Chanyeol was impressively puzzled at that. “It’s the cruelest punishment I can think of right now.”

Well, Jongin was rather relieved. That surely didn’t sound like the cruelest anything, considering the other options. Baekhyun and Kyungsoo also looked quite relieved, and Chanyeol was still confused. Only Siwon seemed to be alarmed by the situation, but it dissipated as soon as he noticed Jongin was looking at him. He turned to look at the human boy and smiled.

“Then, shall we take you back home?” He said, patting his shoulder kindly. Jongin frowned and sniffed.

“You… you’re not gonna kill me?” Jongin had ceased to understand all things.

“Not right now,” God shakes his head. “I have no interest in claiming a soul so young. Besides, it’d be a waste of that driver license, right?” He winked, and Jongin started to understand that no, he wasn’t going to die that day, for reasons he could not yet wrap his mind around.

His eyes swelled with tears. “Thank you,” Jongin whimpered, bowing as low as he could. “Thank you so much.”

Siwon just smiled, shaking his head and patting him on the back. “Take care of Kyungsoo and Baekhyun, okay?” he requested. “It has been a long time since they were human. Their social abilities might be a little rusty.”

Jongin nodded furiously, sniffing harder than before. He was so happy he felt like he could explode. Everything had ended well, after all.

“Also, make sure you visit Chanyeol here,” Siwon handed him a business card, on the back of which were scribbled the name and telephone number of a hospital. “He’ll recover steadily, I believe, but it’ll take time. Also,” then, shooting a glance at Heechul – who watched their conversation from the corner of his eye and with a grin on his lips – he lowered his voice and added, “take care.”

A chill ran down Jongin’s spine as he caught on the hint. It wasn’t over yet.

With a final friendly pat on his back, God left Jongin’s side in order to join Heechul at the base of Sungmin’s table. Jongin was left standing alone, several meters away from the whole make-do court, as well as from his friends.

“So, is everything settled?” Sungmin asked for a confirmation. 

“Yep,” Heechul chirped contently.

“Sure, your honor,” Siwon eyed The Devil with suspicion.

“Great,” the judge sighed. “I thereby state that the wandering soul Park Chanyeol will be restored, and that the fire demon Baekhyun and guardian angel Kyungsoo are demoted from their current statuses and condemned to… go back to humanity, or something,” Sungmin shook his head, apparently also puzzled at Heechul’s punishment. “I declare this court closed. Finally.”

And, with a slam of the hammer, lightning fell on them, and they were gone.

Or rather, not everyone was gone; Jongin, missed by the lightning, was still there to notice that Baekhyun and Kyungsoo had been left behind, hair damaged and clothes singed. Jongin finally did what he has been dying to do since they had been unchained: ran like a mad man, then threw himself on them.

“Jongin!” Kyungsoo yelled when Jongin’s leg hit him on the chest and his knee fell heavily on his thigh. “That hurts!!”

“Are we human? Is that all it is?” Baekhyun was slightly disoriented, but was also getting used to having Jongin’s arms tight around his neck.

“I guess so,” Kyungsoo said, looking around with slightly lost eyes. “I feel different. I don’t think I could fly even if I tried to. Can you still set stuff on fire?”

Baekhyun frowned, also looking around. The weather was finally beginning to clear up. “No,” Baekhyun said a bit dejectedly. “Man, I lost my horns. I’m pissed. I looked good with them.”

Jongin, who was on the verge of crying again, let out a shaken laugh. That attracted Baekhyun’s attention, and the now ex-demon pushed him away in order to face him properly.

“You gave me a hell of a scare there,” he scolded Jongin in a soft voice. “I thought all these years of fighting the law would end up with the law winning. Don’t ever do this again, okay?”

“Okay,” Jongin sniffed. “I’m sorry,” he sniffed again, and Baekhyun chuckled, giving his lips a quick, soft kiss. Jongin’s face turned red. 

“Gross,” they heard Kyungsoo mutter as he squirmed away from them, leading Jongin to fall butt-first on the moist grass. Baekhyun stuck out his tongue at him, muttering ‘rude’. “We have to find Chanyeol soon. He’s probably going to panic when he sees the state his body is in.”

Baekhyun nodded. “True,” then, to Jongin, “give him the card with the hospital data.”

Jongin did as told, handing the now slightly crumpled card to Kyungsoo. He made a face when he read the name, apparently unaware of the existence of such place.

“I should probably drive you there,” Jongin said, worried about Kyungsoo despite not being in the mood to drive. However, Kyungsoo dismissed him.

“I can go alone. Just… give me your money,” he said, and Jongin obeyed, pulling his long forgotten wallet and handing all his money to the ex-angel. “I’ll just ask for directions and take a bus. I don’t want to be near the two of you right now,” he added with some bitterness to his voice. Baekhyun laughed.

“Your time will come,” he said, nuzzling Jongin’s neck affectionately so to show off. Jongin’s severe case of burning cheeks worsened. “You’re in love with Chanyeol, aren’t you?”

Kyungsoo rolled his eyes at him. “Well, duh. I’m his guardian angel, am I not?” then, after a second thought, “I mean, was. _Was_ his guardian angel. Anyway, it’s obvious that I love him.”

Baekhyun raised an eyebrow. “Is that how The Heavens’ people work?”

Kyungsoo shrugged. “Apparently.” He turned around. “I’m going now. We’ll meet again, eventually.”

“Say hello to him for us,” Baekhyun requested as Kyungsoo’s figure became more distant. The ex-angel answered with a wave of hand, and walked away from the clearing, into the road.

Soon enough, Baekhyun and Jongin were alone, and Jongin turned his attention back to Baekhyun’s leather pants. 

“Where did you buy these clothes?” he asked, tugging at a stud on Baekhyun’s jacket.

“I have friends. These aren't really mine, though. Not yet,” was the answer. Baekhyun grinned. “Did you like them?”

Jongin also grinned, and nodded. “They really suit you,” he said, scooping closer to the other’s warm body. 

“Thank you. You give good fashion advice,” Baekhyun said before landing a tender kiss on Jongin’s plush lips. It was just a chaste touch at first, but, when Jongin started responding, he felt a graze of teeth on his bottom lips and something inside of him stirred. Unfortunately, Baekhyun pulled away. “Man, we have so much to do. I have to pretend I’m a person who has been existing for some time,” he wrinkled his nose. “And we have to start saving money for Chanyeol’s bail. So much for thinking everything is magically fine…”

Jongin remembered Heechul’s sideway grin from before, and Siwon’s words, shivering at the fresh memory. _Take care_. He shook his head, trying to get rid of such thoughts; for now, they had to focus on more immediate issues.

“I’m hungry,” Jongin said rather honestly. Now that his body was at peace, his stomach felt horribly hollow. He also needed a shower. “Can we go home for now?’

Baekhyun smiled tauntingly. “So you want to take me home, hm~?” Jongin felt that he had the right to hit him, and punched him on the shoulder. “Ouch. Okay, okay. Let’s go. We need a shower, probably. You have vomit on your shoes.”

“Your hair is all up,” Jongin pointed out in revenge. Baekhyun clicked his tongue, running a hand through his damaged hair, and reaching out his other hand for Jongin to hold.

With their fingers laced together, and feeling the warmth of Baekhyun’s palm against his own, Kim Jongin went home. And that was the real end of his supernatural adventures.

For a while, at least.

 

epilogue.

 

Baekhyun told all of Jongin’s neighbors that he was Jongin’s cousin.

“Byun Baekhyun from Bucheon, Gyeonggi province. Twenty-five years old, amateur musician,” Baekhyun recited his background to Jongin over a bowl of kimchi rice. “Son of your mother’s sister’s first marriage.”

Jongin nodded, fairly impressed. “That’s pretty good.” Then, he wrinkled his nose. “Weird surname. Why not Kim?”

“Kim is too plain,” Baekhyun deadpaned, and Jongin was only mildly offended. “Also, it’d make us look even more like an incestuous pair.” Ah, that one was true.

Baekhyun had also gotten around faking official documents and such. He got some for Kyungsoo that “proved” that Kyungsoo was a relative of Chanyeol’s, just so he could visit Chanyeol at the hospital more often. The three of them had taken in several jobs in order to pay Chanyeol’s hospital bills. As for his debt, his boss had, rather surprisingly, decided to pardon him.

“I wasn’t that far from paying everything I owed, and the police wouldn’t let me go so easily if they found me burning stuff down again,” Chanyeol told them once when Baekhyun and Jongin visited him. Not all that surprisingly, the case had been muted by the people Chanyeol worked for. It was bad for society, but good for the ex-arsonist. “Besides, I’m useless like this, anyway.”

Chanyeol had been lucky not to have lost any limbs. His arms had been severely damaged, and it was obvious there would be other consequences besides the scarring. Nevertheless, his recovery had been steady, and the doctors were optimistic: he’d probably leave the hospital after all but six months.

“It’ll be hard to get a job,” Chanyeol lamented, looking at his face in Baekhyun’s hand mirror. “Maybe I can become a pirate or something.”

“Or a scary bartender,” Jongin suggested.

“Or you can just be Kyungsoo’s housewife,” Baekhyun said, toying with Jongin’s hair absentmindedly. “Do Kyungsoo, the bookstore clerk, arrives at home tired after a day of work. He shouts, ‘I’m home, honey!’ and, from the depths of the kitchen,” he did his best to mimic Chanyeol’s deep voice. “Welcome home, darling~!”

Chanyeol and Jongin laughed soundly. Soon enough, Chanyeol’s expression turned dreamy. “I could live with that.”

All in all, everything was going on smoothly. Of course that, sometimes, Jongin saw nightmares of red hair and taunting smiles, only to wake up drenched in sweat and wrapped tightly in Baekhyun’s arms. Some other times, those last moments in the end of the trial would come back to haunt him. _Take care_. In those days, he’d go to bed with his heart heavy with fear, wondering if he’d survive another day, if he’d wake up to Heechul waiting for him outside his door.

But, in the end, Jongin reached the conclusion that he shouldn’t think about that. He had to live life to the fullest, one day at once, enjoying every second. Thanking God for being alive. 

God, and Baekhyun, of course.


End file.
